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PROSPECTUS
OF THE
SOCIETY FOR THE EXTINCTION OF THE SLAVE TRA.DE
AND FOR THE
CIVILIZATION OP AFRICA,
INSTITUTED JUNE, 1839.
In the year 1807, Great Britain prohibited all her
subjects from engaging in the Slave Trade, and the
Legislature of this country, in accordance with the
voice of the people, repudiated a commerce which
had produced more crime and misery, than perhaps
any other single course of guilt and iniquity ; but
neither the Government nor the Legislature, nor the
subjects of this realm, were satisfied with a mere
cessation from crime.
Remembering how deeply, in times of compa-
rative ignorance, we had sustained and augmented
this trade, so repugnant to every Christian principle
and feeling, the nation determined to use its utmost
influence, and expend its resources, in the noble
attempt to extinguish it for ever.
The compass of this address will not allow even of
the most compendious statement of the measures
resorted to, of the treaties concluded with foreign
powers, of the monies expended, and the various
2
other efforts made to effect this object ; suffice it to
say, that since the year 1807, all the great powers of
Europe have been induced by Great Britain to unite
in expressing their abhorrence of this traffic ; and
with all, treaties more or less stringent have been
made for its extinction.
The United States of America, though from political
reasons they have declined any actual co-operation,
have not the less denounced and prohibited all traffic
in Slaves from Africa. Great Britain has expended,
in bounties alone, upwards of £940,000, and in the
maintenance of the courts established for the adjudi-
cation of captured slaves, above £330,000 : besides a
very large sum annually in supporting a considerable
force of cruizers in various parts of the globe, to
intercept and destroy the traffic* An infinitely
more important sacrifice has been made in the loss
of British life, which has been necessarily incurred in
pursuing this object. The result, the melancholy
result, remains to be stated. The traffic has not been
extinguished, has ot been diminished, but, by the
latest accounts from which any estimate can be cor-
rectly formed, the numbers exported have increased
—the destruction of human life, and all the guilt and
misery consequent thereon, have been fearfully aug-
* This Expenditure, together with that caused by the payments
to foreign powers on account of the Slave Trade, for the support
of liberated Africans, and for other incidental expenses, may be
shown, from official documents, to have' amounted to upwards of
fifteen millions sterling.
mented ; and at the same time it may be stated, that
the numbers exported from Africa, are, as compared
with the year 1807, as two to one, and that the annual
loss of life has risen from seventeen to twenty-five
per cent.
Let no man, however, say that these efforts have
been thrown away. Who can tell how fearful might
not have been the amount of enormity, if those exer-
tions had not been made ? Who would presume to
say that the very assertion of the great principles of
justice and truth has not accelerated the final extir-
pation of those detested practices? Who would
venture to assert that a criminal inaction on the part
of Great Britain might not have caused an indefinite
continuance of the guilt on the part of other nations ?
But the people of England have not succeeded to
the extent of their wishes : — Assuming it to be so,
what remains to be done ? — but led on by the same
Christian principles, the same devotion to truth,
justice, and humanity, to continue our efforts, and to
apply, if possible, other and more efficient remedies
in accordance with these great principles.
Animated by these feelings, a number of noblemen
and gentlemen of all political opinions, and of
Christian persuasions of divers kinds, have formed
themselves into a Society for the purpose of effecting
the extinction of the Slave Trade ; and they now call
on the public to unite their exertions for the accom-
plishment of this great end.
That the British public, apprized of the extent of
the enormity, and deeply feeling- the guilt and
misery now prevailing, will receive with favour the
announcement of the formation of this Society, no
doubt is entertained; but various opinions do and
will exist as to the most fitting means to be adopted
for the establishment of peace and tranquillity in
Africa.
It is expedient, therefore, to state the leading
principles on which this Society is formed, and the
measures intended to be pursued.
It is the unanimous opinion of this Society, that
the only complete cure of all these evils, is the intro-
duction of Christianity into Africa. They do not
believe that any less powerful remedy will entirely
extinguish the present inducements to trade in
human beings, or will afford to the inhabitants of
those extensive regions a sure foundation for repose
and happiness.
But they are aware that a great variety of views
may exist as to the manner in which religious
instruction sliould be introduced. Distinctly avowing,
therefore, that the substitution of our pure and holy
faith for the false religion, idolatry and superstitions
of Africa, is', in their firm conviction, the true ulti-
mate remedy for the calamities that afflict her, they
are most anxious to adopt every measure which may
eventually lead to the establishment of Christianity
throughout that Continent ; and hoping to secure
the cordial co-operation of all, they proceed to declare
that the grand object of their association is — the
extinction of the Slave Trade.
The primary object of this Society will be con-
stantly kept in view under all circumstances of dif-
ficulty or discouragement, as the grand end to which
their efforts, of whatever character, should be reso-
lutely and unchangeably directed.
As one of the principal means, they have cordially
co-operated with Mr. Buxton in inducing Her
Majesty's Government to undertake an expedition
to the river Niger, with the view of obtaining the
most accurate information as to the state of the
countries bordering on its mighty waters.
The immense importance of this object alone, as
opening a highway into the interior of Africa, and
bringing the efforts of British philanthropy into
immediate contact with the numerous and populous
nations it contains, will be at once perceived and
acknowledged.
It will be one of the first duties then of this
Society to watch over the proceedings of this expe-
dition, to record its progress, and to digest and
circulate the valuable information which it may be
confidently expected to communicate.
When this leading step has been taken, it is anti-
cipated that a large field for exertions of a different
description will then be opened ; but desirable as such
exertions may be, it must be clearly understood that
this Society, associated solely for benevolent purposes,
can bear no part whatever in them : still, in order
that a comprehensive view may be taken of the whole,
though each part must be accomplished by agencies
6
entirely distinct, it may be expedient to state some of
the expectations which are entertained.
One most important department must entirely rest
with Her Majesty's Government, — the formation
of Treaties with the native rulers of Africa for the
suppression of the Slave Trade. Such Treaties,
however, will not be carried into execution, unless
those wants which have hitherto been supplied from
the profits arising from the sale of the natives, should
be satisfied through the means of legitimate com-
merce. It may appear expedient to the Government
to obtain from the Chiefs the possession of some con-
venient districts which may be best adapted to car-
rying on trade with safety and success, and when this
is effected, another and wholly distinct Society may
perhaps be formed, for the purpose of aiding in the
cultivation of those districts, and of promoting the
growth of those valuable products for which the soil
of those Countries is peculiarly fitted.
The present Society can take part in no plan of
Colonization or of Trade. Its objects are, and must
be, exclusively pacific and benevolent ; but it may by
encouragement, and by the diffusion of information,
most materially aid in the civilization of Africa, and
so pave the way for the successful exertions of others,
whether they be directed to colonization and the cul-
tivation of the soil or to commercial intercourse, or
to that which is immeasurably superior to them all,
the establishment of the Christian faith on the Con-
tinent of Africa.
At home this Society will direct its vigilant atten-
tion to all which may arise with respect to the traffic
in Slaves, and give publicity to whatever may be
deemed most essential to produce its suppression.
In Africa there are various means whereby it may
effectually work to the same end. One of the great
impediments at present existing to the advancement
of knowledge, is the state of the native languages
of Western and Central Africa.
Amongst the many nations which inhabit those re-
gions, there are certainly many different dialects, and
not improbably several leading languages. A few
only of those languages have yet been reduced into
writing, and consequently the difficulty of holding
intercourse with the natives and imparting knowledge
to them is greatly increased. By the adoption of
effectual measures for reducing the principal lan-
guages of Western and Central Africa into writing,
a great obstacle to the diffusion of information will be
removed, and facility afforded for the introduction of
the truths of Christianity.
There is another subject of no light importance
which would legitimately fall within the views of this
Institution. In Africa, medical science can scarcely
be said to exist, yet in no part of the world is it more
profoundly respected. As at present understood by
the natives, it is intimately connected with the most
inveterate and barbarous superstitions ; and its artful
practitioners, owing their superiority to this popular
ignorance, may be expected to interpose the most
8
powerful obstacles to the diffusion of Christianity and
of science.
To encourage therefore the introduction of more
enlightened views on this subject; — to prevent or
mitigate the prevalence of disease and suffering
among the people of Africa, — and to secure the aid
of medical science generally to the beneficent
objects of African civilization, must be considered
of immense importance ; nor would its benefits be
confined to the native population. It is equally ap-
plicable to the investigation of the climate and loca-
lities of that Country. To render Africa a salu-
brious residence for European constitutions may be a
boneless task ; but to diminish the danger, to point
out the means whereby persons proceeding thither
may most effectually guard against its perils, may
perhaps be effected ; nor must it be forgotten that in
however humble a degree this advantage can be at-
tained, its value cannot be too highly appreciated.
Various other measures may come within the legi-
timate scope of this Institution. It maybe sufficient
to recapitulate a few ;-— the encouragement of prac-
tical science in all its various branches, — the system
of drainage best calculated to success in a climate so
humid and so hot, would be an invaluable boon to all
who frequent that great Continent, whatever might
be their purpose. Though this Society would not
embark in agriculture, it might afford essential as-
sistance to the natives, by furnishing them with useful
information as to the best mode of cultivation ; as to
9
the productions which command a steady market,
and by introducing the most approved agricultural
implements and seeds. The time may come when
the knowledge and practice of the mighty powers of
steam might contribute rapidly to promote the im-
provement and prosperity of that Country.
Even matters of comparatively less moment may
engage the attention of the Society. It may assist
in promoting the formation of Roads and Canals.
The manufacture of Paper, and the use of the Print-
ing Press, if once established in Africa, will be
amongst the most powerful auxiliaries in the disper-
sion of ignorance, and the destruction of barbarism.
It is hoped that enough has now been stated to
justify the Society in calling for the aid and co-ope-
ration of all who hold in just abhorrence the iniqui-
tous traffic in human beings — of all who deeply
deplore the awful crimes which have so long afflicted,
and still continue to devastate Africa — of all who
remember with deep sorrow and contrition that share
which Great Britain so long continued to have, in
producing those scenes of bloodshed and of guilt. A
variety of collateral means has thus been suggested
sufficiently important and interesting to demonstrate
the necessity of a distinct Society, and to entitle it
to the best wishes and firmest support of every sincere
friend of Africa.
To its success, cordial and united co-operation is
indispensable. It proposes to act by means in which
the whole community, without regard to religious or
political opinions, may concur ; and though it does
10
not embrace the establishment by its own agency of
schools for the spread of Religious Instruction, it
abstains from such an undertaking, not because it
does not value the introduction of Christian know-
ledge as the greatest blessing which can be bestowed
on that idolatrous land, but because a diversity of
opinion as to the mode of proceeding, must of neces-
sity interfere with the unity of action so essential for
the common prosecution of such an important object,
and thus impede instead of facilitate the objects of
this Institution.
It is impossible, however, to close this address
without again expressing, in the most emphatic
terms, the conviction and earnest hope of all who
have already attached themselves as members of this
Institution, that the measures to be adopted by them
for the suppression of the traffic in Slaves — for
securing the peace and tranquillity of Africa — for the
encouragement of agriculture and commerce, will
facilitate the propagation and triumph of that faith
which one and all feel to be indispensable for the
happiness of the inhabitants of that Continent. How-
soever the extension of the Christian religion may be
attempted, it is far more likely to take root and flou-
rish where peace prevails, and crime is diminished,
than where murder and bloodshed, and the violation of
every righteous principle, continue to pollute the land.
Office of the Society,
15, Parliament Street,
\4.th February, 1840.
THE PROVISIONAL COMMITTEE.
Chairman.
Thomas Fowell Buxton, Esq.
Ueput» Cf) airmen.
The Right. Hon. Stephen Lushington, D.C.L. M. P.
Sir Robert Harry Inglis, Bart., M. P.
The Earl of Euston, M. P.
The Earl of Chichester
The Lord Charles Fitz Roy, M. P.
The Lord Nugent.
The Lord Viscount Sandon, M.P.
The Lord Ashley, M. P.
The Lord Eliot, M.P.
The Lord Worsley, M. P.
The Lord Bishop of London.
The Lord Calthorpe.
The Lord Seaford.
The Lord Whamcliffe.
The Lord Teignmouth, M. P.
The Hon. C. P. Villiers, M. P.
The Hon. F. G. Calthorpe.
The Right Hon. T. B. Macaulay, M. P.
12
Sir Thomas Dyke Acland, Bart., M.P.
Sir George Stephen.
Thomas Dyke Acland, Esq , M. P.
William Allen, Esq.
Captain W. Allen, R. N.
Captain Bird Allen, R. N.
George Babington, Esq.
Edward Baines, Esq., M. P.
John J. Briscoe, Esq., M. P.
E. N. Buxton, Esq.
Edmund Buxton, Esq.
Robert Barclay, Jun., Esq.
Jos. Gurney Barclay, Esq.
Arthur Kett Barclay, Esq.
Jos. Beldam, Esq.
John Bandinel, Esq.
The Rev. Dr. Bunting.
The Rev. John Beecham.
Frederick Bell, Esq.
James Bell, Esq.
Captain Bosanquet, R. N.
William Brackenbury, Esq.
James Cook, Esq.
Captain Cook.
Emanuel Cooper, Esq.
Dandeson Coates, Esq.
William Ewart, Esq,. M. P.
William Evans, Esq., M. P.
William Storrs Fry, Esq.
J. Gurney Fry, Esq.
W. E. Forster, Esq.
H. Goulburn, Jun., Esq.
13
Charles Grant, Esq.
Dr. Gregory.
Samuel Gurney, Esq.
Samuel Gurney, Jun., Esq.
John Henry Gurney, Esq.
Samuel Hoare, Esq.
John Gurney Hoare, Esq.
William Hamilton, Esq.
The Rev. R. E. Hankinson, Jun.
Benjamin Hawes, Jun., Esq., M. P.
Dr. Hodgkin.
John Irving, Esq., M. P.
Andrew Johnston, Esq.
Captain Kelly, R. N.
J. J. Lister, Esq.
L. C. Lecesne, Esq.
Charles Lushington, Esq., M. P.
James M f Queen, Esq.
Richard Matthews, Esq.
The Hon. Captain Maude, R. N.
Colonel Nicholls.
Robert Pryor, Esq.
C. L. Phillips, Esq.
G. R. Porter, Esq.
W. Foster Reynolds, Esq.
William Rothery, Esq.
Thomas Sturge, Esq.
W. C. Stretfield; Esq.
Benjamin Smith, Esq., M. P.
William Taylor, Esq.
Colonel Torrens.
Captain Trotter, R. N.
H. R. Upcher, Esq.
14
Captain Washington, R. N.
Henry Waymouth, Esq.
Cr*agum\
J. GURNEY HOAREj ESQ.
&tcxttat$.
The Rev. J. M. Trew.
Receiving Bankers : — Messrs. Barnetts, Hoare, and Co.,
62, Lombard-street ; Messrs. Barclay, Bevan, and Co., 54,
Lombard-street; Messrs. Coutts and Co., 59, Strand; Messrs.
Drummonds, Charing-cross ; Messrs. Haneury, Tayj.or, and
Co., 60, Lombard-street; Messrs. Hankeys, 7, Fenchurch-
street; Messrs. Hoares, 37, Fleet-street; Messrs. Williams,
Dbacon, and Co., 20, Birchin-lane.
THE
ITS REMEDY.
THOMAS FOWELL BUXTON, Esq.
" This is a people robbed and spoiled ; they are all of them snared in
holes, and they are hid in prison houses ; th ey are for a prey, and none
deliveretli; for a spoil, and none saith, Restore." — Isaiah, xiii. 21.
" The desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose." — Isaiah, xxxv. 1 .
LONDON:
JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE-STREET.
MDCCCXL.
Sb~»^, JS~
*#^
LONDON :
Printed by William Clowes and Sons,
Stamford Street.
ADVERTISEMENT
PRESENT EDITION.
The first part of this work, delineating the extent
and the horrors of the African Slave Trade, was
published early in 1839 ; it was then my intention
to add the other part, containing " The Remedy"
in the form of a second volume, but for reasons not
necessary to detail, I found myself obliged to defer
its publication for a longer period than I had at first
proposed. Meanwhile, fresh sources of information
opened themselves to me, and I have thus been fur-
nished with so much new matter, that I have found
it necessary (another edition being also required) to
republish the first volume in its present shape.
Those even who have fully possessed themselves
of the case as it then stood will not I hope refuse it
some further examination now ; I have added to
every part the results of the most recent informa-
tion ; have, in some respects, revised and perfected
the calculations, and have subjoined a chapter on a
a2
IV ADVERTISEMENT.
topic which strictly belongs to the State of Africa,
and is in every sense closely allied to the Slave
Trade, — the Superstitions and Cruelties existing
in that country. A " Remedy" is almost as urgently
demanded for these as for the Traffic itself. This
Remedy, as it presents itself to my mind, is unfolded
in Part II. of this volume.
I have judged it expedient, in order to condense
into one view all the facts appertaining to this part
of my subject, to incorporate the substance of the
chapter, entitled " Commercial Intercourse with
Africa," into this latter portion of the work, and I
submit my views to the consideration and correction
of all who are interested in the cause, with the trust
that, if accepted in Theory, they will obtain a cordial
and persevering co-operation in Practice.
CONTENTS.
PART I.
THE SLAVE TRADE.
Page
Introduction ..... i
Chap. 1. Extent . . . . . 15
Brazil — Cuba — Porto Rico — Buenos Ayres, &c. — The
United States — Texas — Summary — Corroborative
Proofs of the Extent of the Slave Trade — Mohamme-
dan Slave Trade— Summary.
Chap. 2. Mortality ... 73
Seizure — March — Detention — Middle Passage — Loss
after Capture — Loss after Landing, and in Season-
ing — Summary.
Chap. 3. Failure of Efforts already made for the
Suppression of the Slaa^e Trade . . 203
Increase of Slave Trading — Portuguese flag — Spanish
Treaty unavailing — Case of the Vencedora — Piracy —
Profits of Slave Trading will overcome force.
Chap. 4. Superstitions and Cruelties of the Africans 226
Early Authorities — Dahomey — Ashantee " Customs" —
Dupuis — Mr. Fox and the King of the Foulahs —
Laird — Red water — Drowning — Fetish Tree — Sir
Charles Macarthy — Mr. Freeman's Journal.
General Review ..... 267
VI CONTENTS. %
PART II.
THE REMEDY.
Page
Introduction ..... 277
Chap. 1. Preparatory Measures . . . 283
Increased Efficiency of Naval Force — Concentration on
Coast of Africa — Increase of Force — Employment of
Steamers — Treaties with Native Powers — Facilities
for such Treaties — Major Denham and the Sheikh of
Bornou — Lander — Clapperton and Bello — Governor
Grant's Embassy to the Foulahs — Policy hitherto
adopted by the Government — New line of Policy
recommended — These measures not the Remedy.
Chap. 2. Commerce and Cultivation . . 301
The true Remedy — Our former System — Reasons of
our Failure — Insignificance of present legitimate
Trade — Comparisons with other Countries — Impulse
to Commerce — Productions — Animals — Fowls —
Fish — Minerals — Gold — Iron — Copper, &c. — Soil
— Fertility — Timber — Dye-woods — Gums — Nuts —
Palm Oil — Roots — Fruits — Grain — Drugs — Miscel-
laneous Products — Various Testimonies — Hemp —
Coffee — Sugar — Cotton — Cultivation of Cotton —
Factories — Agriculture — Benefit to England— Bene-
fit to Africa.
Chap. 3. Facilities for Commercial Intercourse . 344
The Niger — Park — Lander — Laird and Oldfield — Posi-
tions commanding the Niger — Fernando Po — Con-
fluence of Niger and Tchadda — Mr. M'Queen — Other
Rivers — The Senegal — Faleme — Gambia — Geogra-
CONTENTS. Vll
Page
phical position — Contiguity to Europe — Effects to be
hoped for.
Chap. 4. Results of Experience . . , 362
Sierra Leone — Disadvantages — Success — Mr. Fergu-
son's Letter — St. Mary's on the Gambia — Missiona-
ries- — Gold Coast — Wyd ah— Opinion of Governor
M'Carthy — General Turner — His Dispatches — His
Death — Colonel Nichols — Mr. Rendall — Opinions
of Travellers— Goldberry — Robertson — Park — Lan-
der — Gray — Captain W. Allen — M'Queen — Clark-
son — Society of Friends — Pasha of Egypt — Process
of Conviction — Coincidence of Opinions.
Chap. 5. Principles ..... 441
Free Trade — No Custom House — No Distinction be-
tween English and Foreigners — Neutral Ground —
Singapore — Free Labour — Warning against Slavery
— Captain Beaver — Mr. Fox — British Dominion —
Dangers — Answers to Objections — Encouragement of
African Produce.
Chap. 6. Elevation of Native Mind . . 457
Opinion of Mr. Pitt — Allowance to be made for the
Negro — Effect of Slavery on Whites — Adams — Cap-
tain Paddock — Favourable Symptoms — Indications
of Capability — Turkey — Ashmun — African Mer-
chants — Eastern Coast — Kroomen — Ingenuity —
Clarkson and the Emperor Alexander — Hannah
Kilham — Facilities for giving Instruction— Liberia
— The Plantains — Bondou — Mr. Freeman — Agents
to be obtained — Letters from the West Indies —
Advances already made — Translations prepared —
Church Missionary Society — Wesleyan Missionary
Vlll CONTENTS.
Page
Society — London Missionary Society — Debt to Africa
— Present time opportune — Plan of proceedings.
Chap. 7. Specific Steps . ~. . . 51
Objects to be attained — Means to be employed — Duty
of Government — Duty of Individuals — Benevolent
Society — Agricultural Company.
Conclusion . ... 523
Appendix A. Facilities for Treaties. . . . 532
B. Fernando Po. . . . . 537
C. Governor's Despatches. . . . 541
D. Letter from Mr. Clarkson. . . . 545
E. Letter from Mr. Hyde Pearson . . 554
F. Copy of a Letter from the Right Hon. Lord
John Russell to the Lords Commissioners
of Her Majesty's Treasury . . 555
PART I.
THE SLAVE TRADE.
" This is a people robbed and spoiled ; they are all of them
snared in holes, and they are hid in prison houses ; they are for a
prey, and none deliyereth ; for a spoil, and none saith, Restore." —
Isaiah, xiii. 21.
INTRODUCTION.
SECOND EDITION.
No one possessing any knowledge of, or anxiety on
the subject of the Negro race can fail to deplore the
present state of Africa.
Desirous to ascertain why it is that all our gigantic
efforts and costly sacrifices for the suppression of the
Slave Trade have proved unavailing, I have em-
ployed some leisure time in surveying this whole
subject, and in tracing out, as far as I have been able,
the true cause of our failure. My original impres-
sion was, that, in increased efforts at sea, and in re-
ducing Portugal to the necessity of executing her
engagements with us, the effective remedy was to be
found, and that little more than these would be
required for the gratification of the ardent desire felt
by the British nation for the abolition of the Slave
Trade. But a closer scrutiny into the facts of the
case has conducted me to a different conclusion.
6 INTRODUCTION.
There are, I now think, reasonable grounds for be-
lieving, that we should still be disappointed, although
we were to double our naval force engaged in that
branch of service, and although it were resolved to
take the most peremptory measures with Portugal.
I do not underrate the value of our maritime ex-
ertions. I think it may be good policy, and, in the
long run, true economy, to multiply the number of
our vessels, to do at once and by a blow, all that can
be done in this way ; to increase our expenses for a
few years, in order to escape the necessity of incurring
cost, not materially less, for an indefinite period.
Neither do I wish that our government should ad-
dress Portugal in any terms short of a declaration
that our cruisers will have orders to seize, after a
fixed and an early day, every vessel under Portuguese
colours engaged in the slave traffic, to bring the crew
to trial as pirates, and inflict upon them the severest
secondary punishment which our law allows. Deci-
sive measures of this kind would, there is no doubt,
facilitate our success, by removing some of the great
impediments which stand in the way of other reme-
dial measures ; nevertheless, I am compelled, by the
various evidence which it has been my province to
examine, to place my main reliance, not on the em-
ployment of force, but on the encouragement which
we may be able to give to the legitimate commerce
and the agricultural cultivation of Africa,
. We attempt to put down the Slave Trade " by the
INTRODUCTION. 7
strong hand" alone ; and this is, I apprehend, the
cause of our failure. Our system, in many respects
too feehle, is, in one sense, too bold. The African
has acquired a taste for the productions of the civi-
lized world. They have become essential to him.
The parent — debased and brutalised as he is — bar-
ters his child; the chief his subject ; each individual
looks with an evil eye on his neighbour, and lays
snares to catch him, — because the sale of children,
subjects, and neighbours, is the only means as yet
afforded, by European commerce, for the supply of
those wants which that commerce has created. To
say that the African, under present circumstances,
shall not deal in man, is to say that he shall long in
vain for his accustomed gratifications. The tide, thus
pent up, will break its way over every barrier. In
order effectually to divert the stream from the direc-
tion which it has hitherto taken, we must open
another, a safer, and a more convenient channel.
When we shall have experimentally convinced the
African, that it is in his power to obtain his sup-
plies, in more than their usual abundance, by honest
means, then, and not till then, we may expect that
he will be reconciled to the Abolition of the Slave
Trade.
To a description of the extent and horrors of the
Slave Trade, the failure of our efforts for its suppres-
sion, and an account of African superstitions and
cruelties, I have added some practical suggestions for
8 INTRODUCTION.
calling forth the latent energies of that quarter of the
globe, and for exhibiting to its inhabitants where
their true interest lies.
The principles of my suggestions are comprised in
the following propositions : —
1. That the present staple export of Africa renders
to her inhabitants, at infinite cost, a miserable return
of profit.
2. That the cultivation of her soil, and the barter
of its productions, would yield an abundant harvest,
and a copious supply of those articles which Africa
requires.
3. That it is practicable to convince the African,
experimentally, of the truth of these propositions,
and thus to make him our confederate in the suppres-
sion of the Slave Trade.
I despair of being able to put down a traffic, in
which a vast continent is engaged, by the few ships
we can afford to employ : as auxiliaries they are of
great value, but alone they are insufficient. I do not
dream of attempting to persuade the African, by ap-
pealing merely to his reason or his conscience, to
renounce gainful guilt, and to forego those inhuman
pursuits which gratify his cupidity, and supply his
wants. But when the appeal we make is to his in-
terest, and when his passions are enlisted on our
side, there is nothing chimerical in the hope that he
may be brought to exchange slender profits, with
danger, for abundant gain, with security and peace.
INTRODUCTION. 9
If these views can be carried into effect, they have
at least thus much to recommend them.
They will not plunge this country into hostility
with any portion of the civilized world ; for they
involve no violation of international law. We
may cultivate intercourse and innocent commerce
with the natives of Africa, without abridging the
rights or damaging the honest interests of any rival
power.
They require no monopoly of trade ; if other na-
tions choose to send their merchantmen to carry on
legitimate traffic in Africa, they will but advance our
object, and lend their aid in extinguishing that which
we are resolved to put clown.
They involve no schemes of conquest ; our ambi-
tion is of another order. Africa is now torn to pieces.
She is the victim of the most iron despotism that the
world ever saw : inveterate cruelty reigns over her
broad territory. We desire to usurp nothing, — and
to conquer nothing, — but the Slave Trade.
Finally, we ask of the Government only that which
subjects have a right to expect from their rulers,
namely, protection to person and property in their
lawful pursuits.
Here I must pause ; for I feel bound to confess,
much as it may tend to shake the whole fabric of my
views, that there is a great danger to which Ave shall
be exposed, unless it be most carefully guarded against
at the outset : the discovery of the fact that man as a
10 INTRODUCTION.
labourer on the soil, is superior in value to man as an
article of merchandise, may induce the continuance,
if not the increase, of that internal slavery which now
exists in Africa.
I hope we shall never be so deluded as to give the
slightest toleration to anything like constrained la-
bour. We must not put down one iniquity by abet-
ting another. I believe implicitly that free labour
will beat all other labour ; that slavery, besides being
a great crime, is a gross blunder ; and that the most
refined and sagacious policy we can pursue is, com-
mon honesty and undeviating justice. Let it then
be held as a most sacred principle, that, wherever our
authority prevails, slavery shall cease ; and that
whatever influence we may obtain shall be employed
in the same direction.
I have thus noticed several of the negative advant-
ages which attach to these views, and I have frankly
stated the danger which, as I conceive, attends them.
I shall now briefly allude to one point, which, I own,
weighs with me beyond all the other considerations,
mighty as they are, which this great question in-
volves.
Grievous, and this almost beyond expression, as
are the physical evils endured by Africa, there is yet
a more lamentable feature in her present condition.
Bound in the chains of the grossest ignorance, she is
a prey to the most savage superstition. Christianity
has made but feeble inroads on this kingdom oi
INTRODUCTION. 1 1
darkness, nor can she hope to gain an entrance
where the traffic in man pre-occupies the ground.
But, were this obstacle removed, Africa would pre-
sent the finest field for the labours of Christian mis-
sionaries which the world has yet seen opened to
them. I have no hesitation in stating my belief,
that there is in the negro race a capacity for receiving
the truths of the Gospel beyond most other heathen
nations ; while, on the other hand, there is this re-
markable, if not unique, circumstance in their case —
that a race of teachers of their own blood is already
in course of rapid preparation for them ; that the
providence of God has overruled even slavery and
the Slave Trade for this end ; and that from among
the settlers of Sierra Leone, the peasantry of the
West Indies, and the thousands of their children
now receiving Christian education., may be expected
to arise a body of men who will return to the land of
their fathers, carrying Divine truth and all its con-
comitant blessings into the heart of Africa.
One noble sacrifice in behalf of the negro race has
already been made. In the words of the most elo-
quent citizen of another nation — " Great Britain,
loaded with an unprecedented debt, and with a grind-
ing taxation, contracted a new debt of a hundred
million dollars, to give freedom, not to Englishmen,
but to the degraded African. I know not that his-
tory records an act so disinterested, so sublime. In
the progress of ages England's naval triumphs will
shrink into a more and more narrow space in the
c
12 INTRODUCTION.
records of our race. This moral triumph will fill a
broader, brighter page."*
Another, it may be a more inveterate evil, remains,
— an evil which for magnitude and malignity stands
without a parallel. One thousand human victims^
^if my facts will bear sifting) are daily required to
feed this vast and devouring consumer of mankind.
In vain has Nature given to Africa noble rivers ;
man is the only merchandise they carry. In vain a
fertile land, lavish in wild and spontaneous produc-
tions, — no cultivating hand calls forth its riches. In
vain has she placed it in the vicinity of civilisation
and Christianity ; within a few weeks' voyage of the
Thames there is a people who worship the shark and
the snake, and a prince who imagines the agency of
an evil spirit in the common properties of the load-
stone.! Africa is, indeed, encircled by an effectual
barrier against the entrance of commerce, cultivation,
and Christianity. That barrier is the Slave Trade.
It may be thought wild extravagance to indulge
the hope that evils so rank are capable of cure. I do
not deny that it is, of all tasks, the most arduous, or
that it will require the whole energy of Great Bri-
tain ; but if it shall be made a capital object of Bri-
tish policy, for the accomplishment of which our
Avhole strength, if necessary, shall be put forward,
and if it shall be, as I am sure it is, a cause in which
we may look for Divine countenance and help, I see
* Dr. Charming. '}• See page 220.
t Laird, vol. i. p. 219.
INTRODUCTION. 13
no reason for despair. What has been done, may-
be done again ; and it is matter of history, that from
superstitions as bloody, from a state of intellect as
rude, and from the Slave Trade itself, a nation has
been reclaimed, and now enjoys, in comparison with
Africa, a blaze of light, liberty, religion, and happi-
ness. That nation is Great Britain. What we find
the African, the Romans found us ;* and it is not un-
reasonable to hope that, in the language of Mr. Pitt,
" even Africa will enjoy, at length, in the evening of
* By the concurrent testimony of the best ancient historians,
our forefathers were nothing better than " painted savages," the
votaries of a sanguinary superstition which consumed its heca-
tombs of human victims : " Alii immani magnitudine simulacra
habent; quorum contexta viminibus membra vivis hominibus
complent ; quibus succensis, circumvent! flamma exanimantur
homines." (Caesar, Bell. Gall., 1. vi. c. 16.) And, if we may
credit the testimony of Diodorus Siculus, they were also addicted
to cannibalism ; " for," says he, " the Gauls are such savages that
they devour human flesh ; as do also those British nations which
inhabit Ireland." (1. v. c. 32.) Cicero, in one of his letters,
speaking of the success of an expedition against Britain, says, the
only plunder to be found, consisted " ex mancipiis : ex quibus
nullos puto te Uteris aut musicis eruditos expectare;" thus, in
the same sentence, proving the existence of the Slave Trade, and
intimating that it was impossible that any Briton should be intel-
ligent enough to be worthy to serve the accomplished Atticus.
Ad Att. 1. iv. 16. Henry, in his History of England, gives us
also the authority of Strabo for the prevalence of the Slave Trade
amongst us, and tells us that slaves were once an established ar-
ticle of our exports. " Great numbers," says he, " were exported
from Britain, and were to be seen exposed for sale, like cattle, in
the Roman market."' — Henry, vol. ii. p. 225.
c2
14 INTRODUCTION.
her days, those blessings which have descended so
plentifully upon us in a much earlier period of the
world."
To raise Africa from the dust is an object worthy
of the efforts of the highest order of ambition. It is
calculated that Napoleon, in the course of his career,
occasioned the sacrifice of three millions of the
human race. The suppression of the Slave Trade
would, in a very few years, save as many lives as he
was permitted to destroy. The most patriotic and
loyal amongst us cannot frame a loftier wish for
our country and its sovereign, than that her reign,
which, in its dawn, witnessed the deliverance of our
colonies from slavery, may be prolonged, till, through
British agency, Africa shall also be released from a
still greater curse : — not, however, for the honour's
sake, though it would give imperishable renown ;
nor for the profit's sake, though it promises to open
boundless fields for capital, industry, and enterprise;
but in pity to Africa, and for His favour who has
said — " Undo the heavy burdens, let the oppressed
go free, and break every yoke." " Then shall thy
light break forth as the morning;" " and the glory
of the Lord shall be thy reward."*
* Isaiah lviii. 6, 8.,
THE SLAVE TRADE.
" You will perceive that this horrid traffic has been carried on to an
extent that almost staggers belief."
Commodore Sir Robert Mends, Sierra Leone*
CHAPTER I.
EXTENT.
In preparing this work, my chief purpose has been
to offer some views which I entertain of the most
effectual mode of suppressing the Slave Trade ; but
before I enter upon these, I must state the extent to
which that traffic is now carried on, and the sacrifice
of human life which it occasions.
My first proposition is, that upwards of 150,000
human beings are annually conveyed from Africa,
across the Atlantic, and sold as slaves.
It is almost impossible to arrive at the exact
extent to which any contraband trade, much more a
trade so revolting, is carried on. It is the interest of
those concerned in it to conceal all evidence of their
guilt ; and the Governor of a Portuguese colony is
not very likely, at once to connive at the crime, and
to confess that it is extensively practised. By the
mode of calculation I propose to adopt, it is very
possible I may err ; but the error must be on the
right side; I may underrate, it is almost impossible
16
THE SLAVE TRADE.
that I can exaggerate, the extent of the traffic.
With every disposition on the part of those who are
engaged in it to veil the truth, certain facts have,
from time to time, transpired, sufficient to show, if
not the full amount of the evil, at least that it is one
of prodigious magnitude.
I commence with what appears to be the most
considerable slave market, viz. — that of
Brazil.
In the papers on the subject of the Slave Trade
annually presented to Parliament by royal authority,
(and entitled " Class A" and " Class B"), the fol-
lowing official information is given by the British
Vice-Consul at Rio de Janeiro, as to the number of
slaves imported there : —
From 1 July to 31 Dec. 1827
From 1 Jan. to 31 March, 1828 .
From 1 April to 30 June, 1828, say
From 1 July to 31 Dec. 1828 .
From 1 Jan. to 30 June, 1829 .
From 1 July to 31 Dec. 1829 .
From 1 Jan. to 30 June, 1830 .
15,481*
15,483t
11,532J
24,488 §
25,179||
22,81 3f
33,964**
148,940
* Class B, 1828, p. 105. f Class B, 1828, p. 107.
J No returns. These numbers are given on the average of the
three months previous to, and three months subsequent to, the
elates here mentioned.
. § Class B, 1829, pp. 80, 81. || Class B, 1829, p. 89.
•1 Ditto, 1830, p. 71. ** Ditto, 1830, p. 78.
EXTENT — BRAZIL.
That is, in the twelve months
preceding the 30th June, 1828
. 42,496
1829 . .
. 49,667
1830 . .
. 56,777
17
148,940
Thus it stands confessed, upon authority which
cannot be disputed, that from the 1st of July, 1827,
to the 30th of June, 1830 (three years), there were
brought into the single port of Rio de Janeiro,
148,940 negroes, or, an average of 49,643 annually.
It appears also, that, in the last year, the number
was swelled to 56,777 per annum *
Caldcleugh, in his Travels in South America,
speaking of the Slave Trade at Rio, (which, however,
was not then so extensive as it now is,) states, " that
there are three other ports in Brazil trading to the
same extent! 'f If this be correct, the number of
negroes annually imported vastly exceeds any estimate
I have formed ; but it is more safe to rely on the
authority of the British Commissioners,^ scanty as
* I see in the Patriot newspaper of 25th June last (1838),
the following statement: — "A Brazil mail has brought advices
from Rio to the 22nd April. That fine country appears /to be
making rapid strides in . civilization and improvement ; the only-
drawback is the inveterate and continued encouragement of the
slave-trade. The Rover corvette had just captured two slavers,
having 494 negroes on board ; and the traffic is said to amount
to 60,000 annually, into Rio alone, almost entirely carried on
under Portuguese colours.
t Caldcleugh's Travels, London, 1825, vol. ii. p. 56.
I By the treaties with foreign powers for the suppression of the
18 THE SLAVE TRADE.
it necessarily is. They reside in the capital ; and
their distance from the three outports of itself might
render it difficult for them to obtain full information.
But when to the distance is added the still greater
difficulty arising from the anxiety on the part of
almost all the Brazilian functionaries to suppress
information on the subject, it is clearly to be in-
ferred that the number stated by the Commissioners
must fall materially below the truth. They tell us,
however, that in a year and a half, from 1st of
January, 1829, to 30th of June, 1830, the numbers
imported were, into
Bahia . . . . . . 22,202
Pernambuco .... 8,079
Maranham ..... 1,252
31,533
To these we must also add those
imported into the port of Para . 799
Total in eighteen months . . 32,332*
Or annually .... 21,554
To which add Rio, as before statedf 56,777
And we have for the annual number
landed in Brazil . . . 78,331
Slave Trade, Commissioners are appointed to act as Judges, in a
Court of Mixed Commission, for the adjudication of captured
slave-vessels.
* Class B, 1829, 1830. f P. 3.
EXTENT BRAZIL. 19
So many, at least, were landed. That number
is undisputed. The amount, however, great as it is,
probably falls short of the reality. If the question
were put to me, what is the number which I believe to
be annually landed in Brazil, I should rate it con-
siderably higher. I conceive that the truth lies be-
tween the maximum as taken from Caldcleugh, and
the minimum as stated in the Official Returns ; and
I should conjecture that the real amount would be
moderately rated at 100,000, brought annually into
these five Brazilian ports. But as the question is,
not how many I suppose, but how many I can show
to be landed, I must confine myself to what I can
prove ; and I have proved that 78,331 were landed
at five ports in Brazil, in the course of twelve months,
ending at the 30th June, 1830.
But is it easy to believe, while Brazil receives so
vast a number into five of her principal ports, that
the trade is confined to them, and that none are intro-
duced along the remaining line of her coast, extend-
ing over 38 degrees of latitude, or about 2,600 miles,
and abounding in harbours, rivers, and creeks, where
disembarkation can easily be effected 1
It may safely be assumed, that the slave-trader
would desire to avoid notoriety, and to escape the
duty which is paid upon all imports ; either of these
motives may induce him to smuggle his negroes
ashore. That numbers are so smuggled is esta-
blished by the fact, that most vessels from the coast
of Africa report themselves " in ballast" on arriving
20 THE SLAVE TRADE.
at Baliia. In the last Parliamentary Papers,* more
than half the vessels are found to have thus reported
themselves, and the remainder to have come from
Prince's Island, Ajuda (Wydah), and Angola, — the
very places where the Slave Trade most prevails.!
The Commissioners interpret these returns in ballast
thus : — " In the six months ending 30th June, 1836,
twenty vessels entered this port (Rio) from the coast
of Africa ; they came in ballast, and, upon the usual
declaration, that the master or pilot had died on the
voyage, were stopped, with scarcely an exception, by
the police, on suspicion of having landed slaves on the
coast ; but as usual also, were, after a few days'
detention, released. "J The Juiz de Direito, of Ilha
Grande, (one of the few functionaries who appears to
have done his duty with respect to the Slave Trade,
and whose activity has been rewarded, on the part of
the populace, by attempts on his life, and on the part
of the Brazilian Government, as I have been informed,
by dismission from his office,) confirms this view of
the Commissioners in a Report, dated 12th November,
1834, in which he says : — "I see that in the trade
in Africans brought to this district, are committed
almost the whole population of this place, and of the
neighbouring district." "Here, since I have been
in the district, there have been twenty-two disem-
barkations, which I can remember ; and I can assure
your Excellency, that an equal or even a greater
* Class B, 1837, and Class B, Further Series, 1837.
t Class B, 1837, p. 83. J Class A, 1836, p. 251.
EXTENT BRAZIL. 21
number have called off this port ; and it is certain
that they did not return to Africa."*
It is then clear that, over and above the number
annually introduced into the five ports, negroes are
landed along the line of the Brazilian coast; but, as
we have no facts to guide us to the precise number,
I will assume that the trading in slaves is confined
to these five places, and that not a single negro was
landed in Brazil beyond the 78,331 negroes in twelve
months, ending in June, 1830.
I admit that this proves little as to the Slave
Trade at the present time. It is very possible that
it raged at a former period, but that it has now ceased;
and it may be argued that the facts stated were prior
to the treaty with Great Britain, and that the opera-
tion of that treaty has considerably reduced the
number. If we are to believe the official reports
made to our Government, it is just the reverse. The
Slave Trade has increased since that time. The
Brazilian Minister of Marine recommends to his
government the formation of a " cordon sanitaire,
which may prevent the access to our shores of those
swarms of Africans that are continually poured forth
from vessels engaged in so abominable a traffic. "f
This, be it observed, was on the 17th of June, 1833,
three years after the treaty had come into operation.
The Ministers of Foreign Affairs and of Justice,
in their report to the Chamber of Deputies, in 1835,
speak " of the continuance of the traffic, to an extent
* Class B, 1834, p. 233. f Class A, 1833, p. 58.
22 THE SLAVE TRADE.
at once frightful to humanity, and alarming to the
best interests of the country." " The fury of this
barbarous traffic continues every day to increase with
a constantly progressing force." " Sixteen hundred
new blacks are openly maintained on an estate in
the neighbourhood of Ilha Grande." " The conti-
nued — we might almost say the uninterrupted — traffic
in slaves is carrying on, on these coasts."' On the
17th June, 1836, Mr. Gore Ouseley, British resi-
dent at Rio Janeiro, states in his despatch, that "The
Slave Trade is carried on in Brazil with more acti-
vity than ever."f In the preceding May, in a de-
spatch to Viscount Palmerston, he speaks of " an
association of respectable persons who were going to
use steam-boats for the importation of Africans. "J
Mr. Ouseley, of date 15th Jan., 1839, states that in
1838, 84 slave-vessels had entered Rio almost openly,
going through the formality, become almost ridicu-
lous, of being examined by " Juiz de Paz," and had
imported 36,974 negroes with impunity. But the
real number imported into this province is probably
40,000 or upwards.
In March, 1836, the President of Bahia observed,
in a speech to the Assembly of that province, " That
the contraband in slaves continues with the same
scandal."§ In the following September the British
* Class A, 1835, p. 265. f Class B, 1836, p. 68.
i Class B, 1836, p. 67. § Class A, 1836, p. 231.
.The British Consul reports from Bahia, that from 1st June to
31st July, 1838, there arrived from Africa seven vessels, 1028
EXTENT BRAZIL. 23
Commissioners say, " At no period, perhaps, has the
trade been ever carried on with more activity or
daring."* And again, in November, 1836, " The
traffic in slaves is every day becoming more active
and notorious on this coast. "f And Mr. Ouseley,
of date 10th August, 183S, reports that the number
of vessels fitted out at Rio for the coast of Africa con-
tinues to increase : and of date 1st Sept., 1838, he
says, " The traders are more animated than formerly,
being under the belief that, as no cruizers have ap-
peared to enforce the instructions, Great Britain is
unable to interrupt the traffic. Several Portuguese-
built vessels lately arrived from Europe have been
fitted out for slave voyages. These are of larger
tonnage than those hitherto employed. Thus the
trade is decidedly on the increase."^
Thus, then, not only by the reports of our Com-
missioners and our Resident, but, by the admission of
the Brazilians themselves, it appears, that the Slave
Trade has increased since the treaty was formed. It
seems hardly necessary to add, that I have received
letters to the same effect from gentlemen on whom
I have entire reliance. A naval officer, in a
letter dated 16th September, 1835, says, " For
the last six months the importation of new slaves is
greater than ever remembered." A gentleman writes
tons, and sailed for Africa 5 vessels, 876 tons, all reputed to be
engaged in slave trading. Class B, 1838, p. 406-7.
* Class A, 1S33, p. 250. t Class A, 1836, p. 260.
J Class B, 1839, pp. 394—406.
24 THE SLAVE TRADE.
to me, of date 7th April, 1837, " It may be well to
acquaint you, that the Slave Trade has now got to an
unprecedented pitch." Lieut. Armitage, who is
lately returned from that coast, where he has been
actively engaged in the suppression of the traffic,
states, in a letter dated March 5, 1839, " I have from
good authority that 90,000 is about the number an-
nually imported into Brazil."
The Parliamentary Papers presented in 1838, re-
markably confirm the two positions which I have laid
down ; first, that the Slave Trade is enormous ; and,
secondly, that so far from abating, it has increased
since the period when the treaty was formed.
By a private letter from a highly respectable
quarter, I learn that in the month of December,
1836, the importation of slaves into the province of
Rio alone was not less than . . 4,831
Our Minister at Rio states that there
arrived in the following month of
January, 1837
February
March
April .
May .
4,870*
l,992f
7,3953;
5,596§
2,753||
27,437
Thus, within six months, in the province of Rio, or
the vicinity, there were known to have been landed
* Class B, 1837, p. 58. § Class B, 1837, p. 65.
t Ibid. 60. || Ibid. 71.
t Ibid. 64.
EXTENT — BRAZIL. 25
this vast number.* This is hardly disputed by the
Brazilian authorities. Our Minister at Rio, in a letter
to Lord Palmerston, dated 18th April, 1837, speak-
ing of 7,395 negroes landed in the preceding month,
says : — " As a satisfactory proof of the general accu-
racy of these reports, it may be observed here, that
the Government has excepted to two only of the nu-
merous items they comprehend. "t
It would be an error to suppose that these reported
numbers comprehend anything like the whole amount
of the importations : conclusive evidence to the con-
trary appears in a variety of passages of the same
reports. I shall take but one as an instance. Mr.
Hamilton, in his enclosure of 1st March, 1837,
states as follows : — " Brig Johovah from Angola.
This vessel, since she left this port, thirteen months
ago, has made three voyages without entering any
port. The first voyage she landed 700 slaves, very
sickly, at Ponta Negra, about half way betwixt this
port and Cape Frio ; on the second voyage, 600
* Lord Howard de Walden, in a note to the Portuguese Mi-
nister, of date 2d April, 1838, says that in 1837,92 vessels laden
with slaves had landed their cargoes in or near Rio ; and that the
numbers amounted to upwards of 41,600. Mr. Gordon writes, of
date Jan. 27th, 1838, to the Brazilian Minister, that, from all the
information he is able to collect, the trade appears to be rather on
the increase than otherwise ; that during the year which had just
elapsed, 92 vessels imported into this province, within a very
limited extent of coast, 46,000 unhappy Africans destined to bear
the degrading yoke of slavery. Class B, 1839, p. 141 and 358.
t Class, B. 1837, p. 63.
26 THE SLAVE TRADE.
slaves at the island of St. Sebastian ; and on the pre-
sent voyage, 520 slaves at Tapier, close to the en-
trance of this port. The greater number of these last
were put into boats and fishing canoes, and brought
to town.'" The last number, namely 520, only, are
reported in the return for the month of February
preceding; but the remaining 1300 have not ap-
peared in any returns. It is evident from this, as
well as many other passages, that vessels land their
negroes on the coast, and return direct to Africa, and
all who do so, escape notice, and are not included in
the account. If these 1300 are added to the returns
for the first six months in the year 1837, the impor-
tations into Rio alone for this year will exceed those
of 1830. Mr. Ouseley says, of date 23d March,
1839, " There are at this moment in Rio harbour be-
tween 30 and 40 vessels, bought and equipped by a
notorious slave trader, provided with Portuguese
papers by H. M. F. M. Consul-general, f
So much for the province of Rio. I would next
observe as to Pernambuco.| In a letter from Mr.
* Class B, 1837, p. 60. f Class B, 1839, F. S. p. 142.
I It appears from the papers taken on board the Portuguese
brig Veloz, captured 18th Sept. ,\ 831, by the " Fair Rosamond,"
that a joint stock company had been formed at Pernambuco for
the importation of slaves. They had purchased the right of esta-
blishing factories in the river Benin, and had stipulated that the
King of Benin and Ocry should expel from the river those who
did not favour the Slave Trade.
The agent of the company, Joao Baptista Cezar, writes to his
employers that, being in want of irons, the Queen of Benin gave
EXTENT BRAZIL. 27
Watts, the British Consul, to Lord Palmerston, of
date 5th May, 1837, he says, " I have just received
directions to furnish Mr. Hamilton with a monthly
return of vessels arriving from the coast of Africa,
at any port within my consulate," &c. ; and he adds,
" the supineness, not to say connivance, of the Go-
vernment of Brazil in general, on the subject in refer-
ence, the gross venality of subordinate officers, the
increasing demand of hands for the purposes of hus-
bandry, the enormous profits derivable from this
inhuman traffic, which is rapidly increasing at this
port in the most undisguised manner, combined with
the almost insuperable difficulty of procuring au-
thentic information through private channels from
the dread of the assassin s knife or bullet, even in
the open day, and in the public gaze ; and the dark
and artful combinations of the dealers in slaves, their
agents, and the agriculturists, to mask and facilitate
the disembarkation of imported slaves ; — all these
glaring and obstructive facts combine to render the
him 48 pairs ; that he had " bought a very pretty girl for two
rolls of tobacco, two fathoms of flannel, and one piece of calico."
He adds, <c There are plenty of slaves for goods ; had I more ar-
ticles I should to-day have had 200 slaves, for there are many
more here waiting." He writes to his wife Josephina :
Dear Spouse of my Heart,
I send you three fine mats and two parrots, one ram goat for
my little son John to play with, and three sea-horse teeth for our
little daughter Henrietta ; also a little girl, very pretty, and a little
black boy for Johnny. They have the mark on the left arm,
&c. &c.
D
28 THE SLAVE TRADE.
attainment of authentic data, on which to ground
effective official representation on the subject of the
unprecedented increase of the Slave Trade all along
the coast of Brazil, an almost insurmountable ob-
stacle."*
I am not sure that we have by any means reached
the extent of the importation. The British Consul
at Pernambuco, of date 29th March, 1838, repeats
some of the arguments used by the Brazilians in fa-
vour of the traffic. They say that the population of
African slaves in Brazil is estimated at two millions,
and that the yearly casualties of life being ascertained
to be in the ratio of five per cent, beyond the annual
births, the population would suffer a decrease in the
short space of ten years, of half its numbers, unless
supplied by a yearly importation without restraint. f
This in itself, supposing the population to be sta-
tionary, would require an importation of 100,000 an-
nually ; but we have reason to believe that, although the
deaths so much exceed the births, the slave population is
rapidly increasing. According to Sir George Staun-
ton, the number of slaves in the then territory of
Brazil was in 1792 nearly 600,000. According to
the official census of 1835, it was 2,100,000. It is
impossible to account for this actual increase on a
decreasing population, except through the Slave
Trade carried on to a prodigious extent.
The case, however, may be stated thus : prior to
the treaty the annual importation of negroes into Jive
* Class B, 1831, p. 84. t Class B, 1839, p. 428, 429.
EXTENT — CUBA. 29
ports of Brazil was 78,331, to which might be added
the indefinite but considerable number smuggled into
other places in Brazil. Since that time the trade has,
by general testimony, increased. Notwithstanding
the difficulty thrown in the way of obtaining infor-
mation, the facts which we have been enabled to
glean demonstrate what the Marquis of Barbacena
stated in the Senate of Brazil on the 30th of June,
1837, namely, That it may be safely asserted, with-
out fear of exaggeration, that, during the last three
years, the importation has been much more consi-
derable than it had ever before been when the com-
merce was unfettered and legal.'"* On these
grounds we might be entitled to make a considerable
addition. It is enough for us to know, that, at the
very least, 78,331 human beings are annually torn
from Africa, and are imported into Braizl,
Cuba.
It is scarcely practicable to ascertain the number
of slaves imported into Cuba : it can only be a
calculation on, at best, doubtful data. We are con-
tinually told by the Commissioners, that difficulties
are thrown in the way of obtaining correct infor-
mation in regard to the Slave Trade in that island.
Everything that artifice, violence, intimidation, popu-
lar countenance, and official connivance can do, is
done, to conceal the extent of the traffic. Our am-
bassador at Madrid, Mr. Villiers, April, 1837, says,
* Class B, 1837, p. 69.
d2
30 THE SLAVE TRADE.
"That a privilege (that of entering the harbour after
dark), denied to all other vessels, is granted to the
slave-trader ; and, in short, that with the servants of
the Government, the misconduct of the persons con-
cerned in this trade finds favour and protection. The
crews of captured vessels are permitted to purchase
their liberation ; and it would seem that the persons
concerned in this trade have resolved upon setting
the Government of the mother country at defiance."*
Almost the only specific fact which I can collect
from the reports of the Commissioners, is the state-
ment, "that 1835 presents a number of slave vessels
(arriving at the Havana), by which there must have
been landed, at the very least, 15,000 negroes. " j" But
in an official letter, dated 28th May, 1836, there is
the following remarkable passage : — " I wish I could
add, that this list contains even one -fourth of the
number of those which have entered after having
landed cargoes, or sailed, after having refitted in this
harbour."| This would give an amount of 60,000 for
the Havana alone ; but is Havana the only port in
Cuba in which negroes are landed ? The reverse is
notoriously true. The Commissioner says, " I have
every reason to believe that several of the other ports
of Cuba,§ more particularly the distant city of St.
* Class B, 1837, p. 2. t Class A, 1835, p. 206.
\ Class A, 1836, p. 153.
§ Mr. Hardy also reports that in the year 183S there were
landed at Juragua 2803 slaves, being the cargoes of nine vessels.
And Mr. Consul Tolme, of date March 20, 1839, writes to Lord
EXTENT — CUBA. 31
Jago de Cuba, carry on the traffic to a considerable
extent." Indeed, it is stated by Mr. Hardy, the
consul at St. Jago, in a letter to Lord Palmerston,
of the 18th February, 1837, " That the Portuguese
brig Boca Negra landed on the 6th instant at
Juragua, a little to windward of this port (St. Jago),
400 Africans of all ages, and subsequently entered
this port."* Further confirmation of this has re-
cently arrived : — in a note given to the commander
of Her Majesty's cruizer, on the coast of Cuba, by
consul Tolme, it is stated that, though the owners
dislike their vessels discharging on the south side of
the island, which is much exposed, yet many cargoes
are landed there, as will be seen by the following
list of the places at which, during the last six months,
vessels have put their negroes on shore. Of 25
cargoes, nine were landed at Guanima, four near
Trinidad, three at Manil, two at Camarisca, one at
Puente de Guano, one at Cabanos, one at Banes, one
at Cogimar, one at Santa Cruz, one at Canimar, one
near St. Jago di Cuba.
But in order that we may be assuredly within
the mark, no claim shall be made on account of
Palmerston, that " the trade of late years, in spite of the Spanish
treaty, has materially increased;" and he adds, " I hesitate not to
say that, so long as the increasing prosperity of this island creates
a demand for slaves, the traffic will be carried on to the same and
even a greater extent than at present, unless Great Britain adopt
much more efficient measures than heretofore for putting a stop to
it." Class B., F. S., 1839, pp. 32—35.
* Class B., 1837, p. 29.
D 3
Q*
32 THE SLAVE TRADE.
these distant ports. Confining ourselves to the
Havana, it would seem probable, if it be not de-
monstrated, that the number for that port, a for-
tiori for the whole island, may fairly be estimated
at 60,000.* I have many strong grounds for believ-
ing that this is no exaggeration, some of which I will
mention. In the first place, I observe that the great
majority of slaves, captured by our cruisers on the
coast of Africa, are bound to the island of Cuba ; out
of 30 vessels which were adjudicated at Sierra
Leone during the years 1834 and 1835, 21 are
described as having that destination. Again, it is an
acknowledged factf that there is in that island an
* " The Slave Trade. — It has occurred to us, now that
the Spaniards and Portuguese are pushing the inhuman traffic
with so much zeal and energy, whether it would not be preferable
to employ steamers than sailing-vessels in cruizing about that grand
receptacle of stolen Africans, the island of Cuba. We have heard
it stated that upwards of sixty vessels per month arrive in Cuba
from the coast of Africa with slaves. Supposing that each vessel
on an average carries two hundred of these, and that the number
of arrivals continue the same for one year certain, we should have
the incredible number of one hundred and forty-four thousand
slaves imported into that 'colony in twelve months ! Although
we cannot believe that the trade is carried on to this extent, still
we think the Government is called upon to resort to prompt and
vigorous measures to repress, if not put a stop to it. Whether
steamers would be preferable to schooners, such as were previously
employed, we are not seamen enough to decide ; certainly the
slavers would have less chance of escape from the former than
the latter." — Watchman, February 21, 1838.
t This fact has been admitted to me by a gentleman resident at
Havana, who at the same time suspects that I have considerably
EXTENT — CUBA. 33
annual decrease of 10 per cent, among the slaves
employed in the cultivation of sugar, the chief
produce of Cuba, and of 5 per cent, in the coffee-
plantations. The slave population, as I learn from
statistical accounts,* amounted, in the year 1828, to
301,000 ; therefore, with an average annual decrease
of at least 8|- per cent., it ought, in the year 1830, to
have amounted to 252,006, or nearly that, whereas,
on the same authority, I find it increased to 479,000,
leaving an excess, which nothing but the Slave Trade
-can account for, of 226,994. Lastly, the produce of
sugar, in 1829, amounted to 164,710,700 lbs. ; in
1836 it was increased to 369,600,000 lbs. ; and I
have learnt, on good authority, that there were
exported in 1828, 40,000,000 lbs. more than in any
preceding year. These undoubted facts would war-
rant a much higher estimate than that which I have
adopted ; but let the number deduced from the re-
over-estimated the numbers imported into Cuba. This, however,
is the only case in which an objection has been raised to my
calculation on the ground of exaggeration. I have cancelled this
sheet since the work went to press, that I might extend this note
to say that Dr. Madden, the gentleman here referred to, has again
written to me in very decided terms to express his dissent from the
calculation I have here made of the annual decrease of the slaves,
and consequently from the result, so far as it depends on that
fact ; his estimate of the annual importation into Cuba is materi-
ally short of mine, but the data on which it is founded are not
sufficiently clear to induce me to alter the text, though I feel it
right thus pointedly to mention the difference 'between us.
* Statistical Account of Cuba, by Don Ramon de Sagra, Havana,
1831.
34 THE SLAVE TRADE.
ports of the Commissioners be taken, and the account
will stand thus : —
Cuba 60,000
Brazil 78,331
138,331
To this number of slaves actually landed
must be added those who have been
captured, which, on the average of
the years 1836 and 1837, was at
Sierra Leone .... 7,852
146,183
And at Havana in 1837 . . . 442
I cannot find that any have been ad-
judicated at Rio.
Further than this I cannot go by actual
proof; but there can be no doubt that
the Slave Trade has other victims than
those included in this calculation. For ex-
ample, we know that several slave vessels
are annually wrecked or founder at sea ;*
though it is impossible to arrive at anything
like exact numbers. Many negroes also
are thrown overboard, either during a chase,
or from dearth of provisions and water.!
For these, I will assume . . 3,375
Total . . 150,000
* See Wrecks, l%c, page 166, &c.
t See p. 157, Captain Wauchope, R.N. See also the Paris
petition at p. 118.
EXTENT— PORTO RICO. 35
I have no authority for this assumption of 3,375,
it is merely a guess ; it may be excessive. I only
take this number to make a round sum. And if in
this trivial point I have gone beyond the mark, I
shall give abundant compensation for it hereafter.
I will next take the case of the Island of
Porto Rico.
In regard to Porto Rico, I learn from the valuable
work of Colonel Flinter, entitled " Present State of
the Island of Porto Rico," some important facts :
the exports from that island amounted to —
in 1814 . . . 500,840 dollars.
1830 . . 3,411,845
The amount of sugar produced has increased
from 37,969 arrobas in 1810
to 414,663 „ in 1830.
Pie calculates that there are only 45,000 slaves
in the island ; but he tells us that the landed pro-
prietors conceal the real number of their slaves in
order to escape a tax.'""
From the Parliamentary Papers of 1837, it ap-
pears, as stated by Mr. Courtenay, the British Consul at
Port-au-Prince, Haiti, "that a slaving schooner, under
the Brazilian flag, called Paquete de Capo Verde,
; * From statistical accounts as furnished by Mr. M'Queen It
appears that the slave population
in 1820 amounted to . . , 20,191
1831 41,819
1836 from the best accounts 60,000
36 THE SLAVE TRADE.
was wrecked on the Folle reefs near Aux Cayes on
the 28th February, 1837, having previously landed his
cargo at Ponces, in the Island of Porto Rico."* It
appears also, that one-ninth part of all the vessels
condemned at Sierra Leone in 1837 were bound for
Porto Rico, and that one of them at least, the Descu-
bierta, belonged to the island and was built there .t
In a Report by the Commissioners at Sierra Leone,
of date 20th March, 1837, it is stated that theTeme-
rario had been captured with 352 slaves on board,
bound for the island of Porto Rico ; J the Commis-
sioners, on the 25th of April following, report the
case of the Cinco Amigos, " belonging to the Spanish
Island of Porto Rico, where slaving adventures have
latterly been fitted out, with increased activity."^
A gentleman on whom I can rely, has informed
me that in November, 1836, he saAvtwo slave-vessels
fitting out in the harbour of Porto Rico, and on his
return in March, 1837, he saw a slaver entering the
harbour, and he learned on the spot, from good au-
thority, that about 7,000 negroes had been landed in
the space of the preceding year.
From the above facts, especially from the increased
production of sugar ; from the constant smuggling
communication which is known to exist with the
slave-mart of St. Thomas; from the circumstance
* Class B., 1837, p. 140.
t Class A., (Further Series,) 1837, pp. 5, 13.
t Class A., 1S37, p. 50.
§ Class A., 1837, p. 28.
EXTENT — BUENOS AYRES. 37
that apprentices have been kidnaj>ped by their masters
in the British settlement of Anguilla,* for the purpose
of being carried to Porto Rico, — and from the fact,
that there is some Slave Trade with that island, it is
not difficult to come to the conclusion, that there has
been a traffic in slaves to a considerable amount.
Upon the same principle, however, which has led me
to waive all additions to which any shade of doubt may-
attach, I will not claim any increase on the sum of
slaves exported from Africa, in respect of Porto Rico.
Buenos Ayres, etc.
I am afraid that some addition might too justly be
claimed with regard to the countries in the vicinity
of the rivers Plata and Uruguay.
In a letter from Mr. Hood "to Lord Palmerston,
dated from Buenos Ayres, the capital of the pro-
vinces of Rio de la Plata, 1833, it is stated, " that
the dormant spirit of slave trading has been awak-
ened ;" that the Aguila Primera, a schooner belong-
ing to this place, and under this flag, was fitting, and
in a forward state, to proceed to the coast of Congo
for a cargo of slaves; and that other fast-sailing
vessels were in request, for the same service." The
Uruguese minister did not deny that the Government
were cognizant of the proceedings, and confessed that
" they had given their concurrence to import 2000
colonists from the coast of Africa, which he consi-
dered a fair and legitimate trade." Nor is it to be
* Class B., 1837, p. 10.
38 THE SLAVE TRADE.
wondered at that lie had arrived at so extraordinary
a conclusion ; for it appears by the same letter that
the same " minister had received a bribe of 30,000
dollars to permit a company of merchants to import
2000 slaves, under the denomination of colonists."*
In September, 1834, Lord Palmerston, in a letter
to Mr. Hamilton, states that the Slave Trade is now
increasing in the river Plata, supported by the capital
of Monte Video f citizens, and covered by the flag of
the United Provinces of the Uruguay," and that the
Abolition Law is wholly without effect.*
How unavailing were the remonstrances then made,
appears by the fact of the seizure, on the 10th No-
vember, 1834, of the Rio da Prata, a slave-brig of
202 tons, under the flag of Monte Video, with licence
from the authorities to import 650 colonists, with 521
slaves on board, men, women, and children." §
" We may form some idea," says Mr. M'Queen,
" of the numbers imported into the Argentine Re-
public, or provinces of Rio de la Plata, from the fact
that, in 1835 (see Porter's Tables), twenty Portuguese
vessels departed for Africa, and as many arrived from
it in the port of Monte Video, after landing their car-
goes of slaves from Africa on the adjacent coasts." ||
* Class B., 1833, pp. 55 and 56.
t Monte Video is the capital of the United Provinces of the
Uruguay, otherwise called the Oriental Republic, or Banda
Oriental.
1 Class B., 1834, p. 81. § Class B., 1S35, p. 141.
|| Mr. Mandeville, of date 24th January, 1839, writes from
EXTENT — BUENOS AYRES, ETC. 39
It is most disheartening to find, that, in spite of
all our efforts, the Slave Trade, instead of ceasing
where it has long prevailed, is spreading over these
new and petty states ; and that the first use they
make of their flag (which but for us they never would
have possessed) is to thwart Great Britain, and to
cover the Slave Trade : and, further, to learn that
their slave-traffic is attended with even more than the
usual horrors. It must not be forgotten that, as we
have just seen, for a voyage from the southern coast
of Africa to Monte Video, (a voyage of some thou-
sands of miles,) the space allowed is less than one ton
for three slaves.
Lists are given in the Parliamentary Papers of
many vessels employed in the Slave Trade, which are
Buenos Ayres that the Consul at Monte Video had acquainted him
with a new method of smuggling slaves into the republic of the
Uruguay. A Brazilian becomes owner of a vessel under Monte
Videan colours ; he sends a cargo to Rio, where the vessel receives
Brazilian produce. With a regular clearance, she tben sails for
Monte Video : having got outside the harbour, little sail is made,
and at night a boat comes off from the shore with 20 or 40 ne-
groes. These are landed at Maldonado, or in the neighbourhood,
and then the vessel makes her entry to Monte Video in the usual
manner ; and no questions are asked. By a systematic repetition
of this fraud a great number of slaves are introduced, into the
" Bauda Oriental." I do not quote this to prove that the Slave
Trade from Africa is increased by this practice, for this is
obviously not the case; but it shows an appetite for Slave
Trading on the part of the Monte Videans, and the shifts to
which they resort in order to satisfy it. Class D.,F. S., 1839,
p. Id.
40 THE SLAVE TRADE.
continually arriving at, or sailing from, Monte Video ;*
but it seems hardly necessary to pursue the subject
further. We know there is a Slave Trade with these
states ; but as we have no data to compute the extent
of it, I cannot avail myself of the fact, however cer-
tain it may be. I must, therefore, in regard to these
countries, as I have done in the case of Porto Rico,
wave extending my calculations. I will next advert
to
The United States.
In the Report "of the Commissioners at Havana,
for 1836, dated 25th Oct., 1836, 1 find these words : —
" During the months of August and September
(1836) there arrived here for sale, from the United
States, several new schooners, some of which were
already expressly fitted for the Slave Trade.
" The Emanuel and Dolores were purchased, and
have since left the port (we believe with other names)
on slaving expeditions, under the Spanish flag.
" But, to our astonishment and regret, we have
ascertained that the Anaconda and Viper, the one on
the 6th, and the other on the 10th current, cleared
out and sailed from hence for the Cape de Verde
Islands, under the American flag.f
* Class B, 1835, pp. 141—143.
t Mr. Barker, the British Consul at the Cape de Verde Islands,
of date 31st December, 1838, states that the American Consul at
Havana, Mr. Trist, had granted more than ten false hills of sale
of vessels, and passes to these islands. Class B, 1839, F. S.,
p. 110.
EXTENT — UNITED STATES. 41
" These two vessels arrived in the Havana, fitted
in every particular for the Slave Trade ; and took
on board a cargo which would at once have con-
demned, as a slaver, any vessel belonging to the
nations that are parties to the equipment article."*
The Commissioners further observe, that the declara-
tion of the American President " not to make the
United States a party to any convention on the sub-
ject of the Slave Trade, has been the means of induc-
ing American citizens to build and fit, in their own
ports, vessels, only calculated for piracy or the Slave
Trade, to enter this harbour, and, in concert with the
Havana slave-traders, to take on board a prohibited
cargo, manacles, &c. ; and proceed openly to that
notorious depot for this iniquitous traffic, the Cape
de Verde Islands, under the shelter of their national
flag :" and "we may add, that, while these American
slavers were making their final arrangements for de-
parture, the Havana was visited more than once by
American ships of war, as well as British and
French."
The Commissioners also state, that " two American
vessels, the Fanny Butler and Rosanna, have pro-
ceeded to the Cape de Verde Islands and the coast
of Africa, under the American flag, upon the same
inhuman speculation."! A few months afterwards
they report that — " We cannot conceal our deep re-
* Class A, 1836, p. 191.
t Class A, 1836, pp. 191, 192.
42 THE SLAVE TRADE.
gret at the new and dreadful impetus imparted to
the Slave Trade of this island (Cuba), by the manner
in which some American citizens impunably violate
every law, by embarking openly for the coast of
Africa under their national flag, with the avowed
purpose of bringing slaves to this market* Consul
Tolme, of date 1 1th April, ] 839, says, " In fact there
appears, more than I ever knew it before, an eager-
ness on the part of the Slave Traders to purchase
fast-sailino- American built vessels, and to send them
out to Africa under the flag of the United States, "f
We are likewise assured that it is intended, by
means of this flag, to supply slaves for the vast pro-
vince of Texas ; agents from thence being in con-
stant communication with the Havana slave mer-
chants."^
This u new and dreadful impetus" to the Slave
Trade, predicted by our commissioners, has already
come to pass. In the recent Parliamentary papers,
the number of American vessels employed in the
* Class A, 1836, p. 218, and Class B, 1836, pp. 123 and 129,
t Class B.,F. S., 1839, p. 36.
X While preparing this work for the press, I received a com-
munication from Major M'Gregor, late Special Magistrate at the
Bahamas, in which lie notices the wreck of the schooner Invin-
cible, on the 28th October, 1837, on one of these islands ; and he
adds, " the captain's name was Potts, a native of Florida. The
vessel was fitted out at Baltimore in America, and three-fourths
of the crew were natives of the United States, although they pre-
tended to be only passengers."
EXTENT — UNITED STATES. 43
trade in 1837 is stated to be 11, and, in 1838, 19.*
In a list of the departure of vessels for the coast of
Africa from the Havana, up to a recent date, I find
that, " in the last four months," no other flags than
those of Portugal and the United States have been
used to cover slavers, j"
The list states that vessels, fitted for the Slave
Trade, sailed from Havana for the coast of Africa,
bearing the American flag, as follows : —
* Class A, F. S., 1838-9, p. 104.
t The Venus, said to be the sharpest clipper-built vessel ever
constructed at Baltimore, left that place in July, 1838, and
arrived at Havana on the 4th of August following. She sailed
from thence, in September, for Mozambique ; there she took in a
cargo of slaves, being all this time under the flag of the United
States. On the 1th of January, 1839, she landed 860 negroes
near Havana, under Portuguese colours ; and on the 9th these
blacks, with 1200 more, were seen at one of the Barracoons, within
two miles of that city, " exposed for sale, and presenting a most
humiliating and melancholy spectacle." — Private Letters.
Lieut. Reeve, of date 2d April, 1839, writes to the Secretary of
the Admiralty, that unless immediate steps be taken to check the
protection of the American flag to the slaver, it will be useless for
Her Majesty's cruizers to be employed for the suppression of the
traffic; and he adds, " No other flag will be seen on the coast in
a short time, for it affords all the protection a slaver can require
under the existing laws."
Admiral Elliot, of date 6th Feb., 1839, says, " Several of the
slave dealers have declared their intention to have an American
sailing master and American colours in each vessel, and some
have had the impudence to assert that the government of the
United States would not discountenance such practices." Class
D, F. S., 1839, p. 31.
E
44 THE SLAVE TRADE.
American.
During the month of June, 1838, 2
July 2
„ August 5
„ September 1
10
The Commissioners at Havana, of date 1st January,
1839, say, " It appears that the American flag will
be at the command of whoever chooses to embark in
such inhuman speculations."*
No symptom in the case is so alarming as this.
It remains to be seen, whether America will endure
that her flag shall be the refuge of these dealers in
human blood.
I confidently hope better things for the peace of
Africa and for the honour of the United States. -f
This leads me to the province of
Texas.
I have been informed, upon high authority, that
" within the last twelve months J 15,000 negroes
were imported from Africa into Texas." I have the
* Class A, F. S., 1838-9, p. 104.
t I am glad to find that, in the course of 1838, an American
sloop of war was stationed at Havana for the special purpose of
putting down ahuses of the American flag; and that the com-
mander of this vessel had seized a brig, pretending to be Ameri-
can, from the coast of Africa, and delivered her up to the Spanish
authorities. Class A, F. S., 1838-9, p. 102.
I Referring to 1837 and 1838.
EXTENT — TEXAS — SUMMARY. 45
greatest reliance on the veracity of the gentleman
from whom this intelligence comes ; but I would
fain hope that he is in error. I can conceive no
calamity to Africa greater than that Texas should
be added to the number of the slave-trading states.
It is a gulf which will absorb millions of the human
race. I have proof, quite independent of any state-
ments in this work, that not less than four millions
of negroes have in the last half century been torn
from Africa for the supply of Brazil. Texas, once
polluted with the Slave Trade, will require a number
still more appalling.
In the case of Texas, as I have not sufficient proof
to adduce in support of the numbers which it is re-
ported have been carried into that country, I shall,
as I have already done in similar instances, wave my
claim for increasing my general estimate.
Summary.
I have then brought the case to this point. There
is Slave Trading, although to an unknown and in-
definite amount, to Porto Rico; to Texas; and
to some of the South American republics.
There is the strongest presumptive evidence, that
the Slave Trade into the five ports of Brazil which
have been noticed, is " much more considerable "
than my estimate makes it; and that I have also
underrated the importation of negroes into Cuba.
There are even grounds for suspicion that there are
other places (besides Porto Rico, Texas, Cuba,
e 2
46 THE SLAVE TRADE.
Monte Video, &c, and Brazil), where slaves are
introduced. But for all these presumptions I reckon
nothing — I take no account of them ; I limit myself
to the facts which I have established ; viz., that
there are, at the present time, imported annually into
Brazil 78,331
That the annual importations into Cuba
amount to . . . . 60,000
That there have been captured . . 8,294
And I assume that the casualties'"
amount to .... 3,375
Making together . 150,000
Corroborative Proofs of the Extent of the
Slave Trade.
I confess there is something startling in the asser-
tion, that so vast a number are annually carried from
Africa to various parts of the New World.
Such a statement may well be received with some
degree of doubt, and even suspicion. I have not
been wholly free from these feelings myself; and
I have again and again gone over the public docu-
ments, on which I have alone relied, in order to
detect any inaccuracy which might lurk in them, or
in the inferences deduced from them. No such mis-
take can I discover ; but my conviction that the
calculation is not excessive, has been fortified by
finding that other persons, who have had access to
* See p, 34.
CORROBORATIVE PROOFS OF ITS EXTENT. 47
other sources of information, and who rest their
estimates on other data than those on which I have
relied, make the number of human beings torn from
Africa still greater than I do.
For example: — Captain M'Lean, Governor of
Cape Coast Castle for many years, who estimates the
extent of the Slave Trade by the vessels which he
has seen passing along the coast, rates the number of
slaves annually taken from the Bights of Benin and
Biafra alone, at 140,000.
In a letter from that gentleman, dated June 11,
1838, he says : —
Sir,
In compliance with your wishes, I beg leave to state to
you, in this form, Avhat I have already mentioned to you verbally ;
namely, that " in the year 1834, I have every reason to believe
that the number of slaves carried off from the Bights of Benin
and Biafra amounted to 140,000."* I have not beside me the
particular data whereon I grounded this calculation; but I can
state generally, that I founded it upon the number of slave-vessels
which actually passed the forts on the Gold Coast during that
year, and of those others, of whose presence on the coast I had
certain information from Her Majesty's cruisers or otherwise.
When I say that I have rather under than over-stated the number,
I ought at the same time to state that, in the years 1834-5, more
slavers appeared on the coast than in any previous year within
* This fact, taken in connexion with an opinion expressed to
me by Governor M'Lean, and confirmed by several merchants
and captains trading to the coast of Africa, that three out of five of
all the slave-vessels from the Bight of Benin are bound to Cuba,
gives 84,000 as the extent of the Slave Trade of that island ; an
amount far exceeding my estimate.
48 THE SLAVE TRADE.
my observation; and this was partially, at least, accounted for
(by those engaged in the traffic) by the fact of the cholera having
swept off a large number of the slaves in the island of Cuba.
The ports of Bahia, also, were opened for the introduction of
slaves, after having been shut for some time previous, on account
of an insurrection among the negro population in that country.
Governor M'Lean returned to Cape Coast Castle
in 1838, and found, it appears, that the Slave Trade
had by no means decreased during his absence. In
a letter, dated 16th October of that year, he says,
" Slavers have continued to pass the forts ; some of
them, as usual, stopping here. From various in-
quiries that I have made, and by collating my inform-
ation, as received from several sources, I can state as
a fact, that there are at this moment on the coast
200 slave-vessels, all under Portuguese colours."
He was assured, by the master of one of the slave-
ships which stopped at the fort, that " the trade was
on the increase, the prices given for slaves in Cuba
being higher than ever."
This does not include the slaves embarked from
the many notorious slave-ports to the northward of
Cape Coast, nor those carried from the eastern shores
of Africa, nor those who are shipped at Loango and
the rest of the south-western coast. I confess that
I have not any very clear grounds for calculating or
estimating the numbers shipped from these three
quarters. Along the south-eastern coast, we know
that there are a great many ports from whence slaves
are taken. With respect to the majority of these, we
CORROBORATIVE PROOFS OF ITS EXTENT. 49
are left in the dark as to the extent to which the
Slave Trade is carried on ; but, in a few cases, we
have specific information. For example : — in the
letters found on board the Soleil, which was captured
by Commodore Owen, H. M. S. Leven, we have the
following* statement : — " From the port of Mozam-
bique are exported every year upwards of 10,000
blacks."* Commodore Owen, in the account of his
voyage to the eastern coast, informs us that from
eleven to fourteen slave-vessels come annually from
Rio Janeiro to Quilimane, and return with from 400
to 500 slaves each, on an average, which would
amount to about 5,500. f
Captain Cook^ has informed me that, during the
year 1837, twenty-one slave- vessels sailed from Mo-
zambique, with an average cargo of 400 slaves each,
making 8,400. These, added to 7,200 exported from
Quilimane in eighteen vessels, also in 1837, according
to Captain Cook, give a total of 15,600 slaves con-
veyed to Brazil and Cuba from these two ports alone.
Of all the vessels, in number about thirty-eight,
which sailed from the eastern coast in that year, Cap-
tain Cook believes that only one was captured. He
adds, — " Some slaves are shipped from Inhambane,
and other places along the coast ;" but, having
* Class B, 1828, p. 84.
f Owen's Voyage, &c, London, 1833, vol. i., p. 293.
X Captain Cook commanded a trading vessel, employed on the
east roast of Africa, in 1836, 7, and 8.
50 THE SLAVE TRADE.
no accurate information, he lias altogether omitted
them.
Lieutenant Bosanquet, of H. M. S. Leveret, in
a letter addressed to Admiral Sir P. Campbell, dated
29th September, 1837, says: — " From my observa-
tions last year, and from the information I have
since been able to obtain, I conceive that upwards of
12,000 slaves must have left the east coast of Africa
in 1836 for the Brazils and Cuba ; and I think, from
the number of vessels already arrived,* and there
being many more expected, that that number will not
be much decreased this year."f
I will now turn to the south-western coast : —
In 1826, the Governor of Benguela informed Com-
modore Owen that, " Some years back, that place
had enjoyed greater trade than St. Paul de Loanclo,
having then an annual averaged export of 20,000
slaves. "$ Owen also informs us that, " From St.
Paul de Loando, 18,000 to 20,000 slaves are said to
be annually exported, in great part to Brazil ; but
that the supply had considerably decreased, on account
of the dishonesty of the black agents in the country."
Commodore Owen shortly afterwards (in 1827)
visited Kassenda, near the river Congo, which place,
he says, " is principally resorted to by slavers, of whom
* The letter is dated at the close of the rainy season on the
eastern coast.
f Class B, Further Series, 1837, p. 25.
X Owen's Voyage, &c, vol. ii., p. 272.
CORROBORATIVE PROOFS OF ITS EXTENT. 51
five were at anchor in the harbour on our arrival,
one French, and the rest under the Brazilian flag."*
On looking over the Slave Trade papers presented
to Parliament in 1838, f I find it stated, in monthly-
lists, that, in the course of the year 1837, seventy
vessels were reported by the British authorities to
have imported into the vicinity of Rio Janeiro
29,929 slaves, from Angola, Benguela, and Loando.
All these vessels came in ballast to the port of Rio
Janeiro, after having landed their slaves on the coast.
The reader will see (vide p. 18, &c.) that there are
other points in Brazil at which slaves are disem-
barked. To say nothing of these, though the consul
at one of them reports the arrival of the Portuguese
brig Aleide, from Angola, on the 10th July, 1837,
having previously landed 460 slaves in the neigh-
bourhood ; though the consul at another states that
" the frequent disembarkation of negroes imported
from the coast of Africa in the vicinities of this port,
is the common public talk of the day;" and though
the vice-consul at a third notices the arrival of three
vessels from Angola, in the months of November and
December, 1836, I only claim from Angola 29,929
negroes landed in Brazil in 1837.
Then, as to the ports and rivers to the north of
Cape Palmas, I find that General Turner, late
Governor of Sierra Leone, in a despatch dated the
20th December, 1825, states that the exports of
* Owen's Voyage, &c, vol. ii. p. 292.
t Class B, 1837, and Class B, Further Series, 1837.
52 THE SLAVE TRADE.
slaves from that part of the coast amount annually
to 30,000.*
From these extracts it appears that we have satis-
factory evidence that the export of slaves from the
south-eastern coast of Africa to America amounts
annually to, say, ..... 15,000
From Angola, &c. to America . . . 29,929
From the ports to the northward of Cape
Coast to America .... 30,000
Amounting in all to . . . 74,929
Thus then stands the case. We have information
that the Slave Trade prevails in a variety of ports
and rivers besides those in the Bights of Benin and
Biafra. This information, though conclusive as to
the fact that the Slave Trade prevails, is vague as to
the extent to which it is carried on j but we have
specific authority to this extent, that from a limited
number of these ports there is an annual draft of
about 75,000
To these we must confine ourselves, and
these, added to 140,000
given by Mr. M'Lean for the exports
* Extracted from the Records of the Colonial Office for 1825.
The Sierra Leone Commissioners, of date 8th March, 1838,
notice " the increasing activity of the Slave Trade in this neigh-
bourhood. In confirmation of this opinion, we may remark,"
they add, " that the two cargoes of slaves shipped by the Isabelita
in the space of about five months, were drawn from the Sherbro'
and Galenas."
CORROBORATIVE PROOFS OF ITS EXTENT. 53
from the Bights of Benin and Biafra,
make the total annual Slave Trade
between Africa and America amount to 215,000
If we deduct from this number the usual amount
of mortality, it will leave a remainder not very dif-
ferent from, though somewhat exceeding, the esti-
mate of 150,000 landed annually in America.
With another gentleman, Mr. M'Queen, whose
authority I have already quoted, I did not become
acquainted until after the time that I had completed
my own estimate. His channels of information
are totally distinct from mine. Besides being con-
versant with all the information which is to be found
in this country, he has recently returned from a visit
to Cuba and Porto Rico, where he went on the busi-
ness of the Colonial Bank, and where he availed him-
self of opportunities of collecting information relative
to the Slave Trade.
He rates the Slave Trade of Brazil at 90,000
Cuba and Porto Rico . . 100,000
Captured in the year 1837 . . 6,146
196,146
Besides Texas, Buenos Ayres, and the Argentine
Republic, into which he believes there are large im-
portations, though to what extent he has no means of
judging.
I now resort to a mode of proof totally different
from all the foregoing. I have had much communi-
cation with African merchants, engaged in legitimate
54 THE SLAVE TRADE.
trade ; and it was suggested by one of them that a
very fair estimate of numbers might be formed, from
the amount of goods prepared for the Slave Trade,
(and absolutely inapplicable to any other purpose
except the Slave Trade,) manufactured in this coun-
try.* At my request, they furnished me with the
following very intelligent summary of the argument,
prepared, as I understood, by Captain M'Lean : —
It is necessarily impossible, from the very nature of the Slave
Trade, to ascertain directly, or with any degree of precision, the
number of slaves actually exported from the coast of Africa for
the Transatlantic slave-markets, in any given year or space of
time. But it is very possible, by instituting careful and minute
inquiries into the several ramifications into which that traffic
branches, to obtain results, by the combination of which we may
arrive at an approximation to the truth, sufficiently accurate for
all the purposes of the main inquiry. And if we find that the
data thus obtained from the most opposite sources, and from
parties upon whose judgment and veracity the most implicit
reliance may be placed, bring us to the same general result, it
may, we think, be fairly taken for granted that the result is sub-
stantially correct.
Among the various sources to which we have applied ourselves,
in order to ascertain the present actual extent of the Slave Trade,
not the least important or satisfactory in its results has been a
careful inquiry as to the quantity and value of goods, manufactured
expressly and exclusively for the purchase of slaves. The grounds
* I have just heard from a highly respectable correspondent,
who has long resided in Brazil, that " the manufacture of goods
exclusively for Africa and the Slave Trade, and exported to Rio
de Janeiro, for the support of that trade, is generally admitted by
the English merchants in that city. They neither disguise nor
deny that the traffic is chiefly upheld by means of English
capital."
CORROBORATIVE PROOFS OF ITS EXTENT. 55
upon which we instituted and carried on this investigation were
these : —
1. We ascertained, by the concurrent testimony of competent
and unimpeachable authority, that the merchandise chiefly, if not
exclusively, given in exchange for slaves, consists of cowries,
Brazilian tobacco in rolls, spirits, and Manchester piece-goods.
2. That the proportions of the goods thus paid, might be taken
generally to be, — one-third cowries, a third tobacco and spirits,
and a third Manchester cotton goods.
3. We ascertained that the average sum paid for each slave
(taking the goods at cost prices) was about £4 sterling.
Lastly, we ascertained that all, or nearly all, the cotton goods
purchased for the Slave Trade, were manufactured in Lancashire ;
and that the description of goods so manufactured were altogethe
unsuitable for any other market save that traffic alone.
Assuming these premises to be correct, and we verified them
with much care, and by the most strict investigation, it of course
followed that, if, by any means, we could ascertain, even proxi-
mately, the value and quantity of the cotton goods manufactured
in and exported from Lancashire, for the Slave Trade, during any
one of the few last years, we should arrive at a proximate (but,
in the main, correct) estimate of the number of slaves actually
purchased on the coast of Africa.*
To some this indirect modus probandi, as to an important fact,
may appear far-fetched ; but we are assured by those who are most
conversant with the African trade generally, as well as with the
Slave Trade and its operations in particular, that it is much more
* The commissioners at Rio Janeiro, of date 14th July, 1838,
make the following remark : — " We have been assured that it is
no uncommon practice (which, however, we do not undertake to
vouch for as a fact) with some of the commission houses here of
Liverpool, Leeds, Manchester, and Birmingham, to sell their goods
intended for the African market on conditional terms ; the debt to
be acquitted in part or in whole, according as the adventure may
ultimately prove successful or otherwise." — Class A, 1838 — 9,
p. 171.
Mr. Gordon, of date 21st April, 1838, speaking of the Slave
56 THE SLAVE TRADE.
conclusive than, to those unacquainted with that peculiar trade, it
would appear. As corroborative of other proofs, at least, it must
certainly be regarded as very valuable.
From returns with which we have been furnished by parties
whose names, were we at liberty to mention them, would be a
sufficient guarantee for their correctness, we have ascertained that
the entire quantity of cotton goods manufactured in Lancashire,
for the African trade (including the legitimate as well as the Slave
Trade), was, in the year 1836, as follows : —
Value of Manchester goods manufactured exclu-
sively for the African legitimate trade . . £150,000
Value of goods manufactured in Lancashire, and
shipped to Brazil, Cuba, United States, and
elsewhere, intended for the Slave Trade, and
adapted only for that trade . . . £250,000
Trade at Rio de Janeiro, says: — " It appears probable that much
British capital is engaged therein, even directly. Indirectly many
British houses in this city have for some time past greatly assisted
enterprises for the nefarious end." He adds, " That when there
was a risk from the British cruizers, these merchants sold only
for ready money, but now they give the slave-dealers credit." —
Class B, 1839, p. 369.
It is satisfactory to observe that this painful intimation has not
been unnoticed by the Home Government.
Viscount Palmer 'ston to Her Majesty's Commissioners at Rio
de Janeiro.
Gentlemen, Foreign Office, Feb. 20, 1839.
With reference to that part of your despatch of the 14th
July, 1838, in which you state that British merchants are con-
cerned, and British capital is employed, in Brazil, in Slave Trade ;
I have to desire that you will collect and transmit to me all the
information you can obtain, with a view to facilitate the identifica-
tion and prosecution of such persons as may be concerned in these
transactions.
I am, &c,
(Signed) Palmerston.
Class A, F. §., 1838—9, p. 131.
CORROBORATIVE PROOFS OF ITS EXTENT. 57
Thus showing an excess in the quantity of goods manufactured
for the Slave Trade, over that intended for legitimate trade,
during the year 1836, of £100,000, or two-fifths of the whole
amount.
Calculating by the data already "given, we shall find that the
number of slaves to the purchase of which the above amount of
goods (manufactured and exported in one 'year, 1836) was ade-
quate, would amount to the large number of 187,500,*— a number
which we have strong reason to believe, according to information
derived from other sources, to be substantially correct.
Assuming the data on which the merchants calcu-
late to be correct, some considerable addition must be
made to the number of 187,500, for
1. Goods only suited for the Slave Trade are
manufactured at Glasgow as well as in Lancashire.
2. Specie to a very considerable extent finds its
way through Cuba and Brazil to Africa, and is there
employed in the purchase of Slaves. To the number
then purchased by goods must be added the number
purchased by money.
3. Ammunition and fire-arms to a large amount,
and, like the goods, of a quality only fit for the Slave
Trade, are sent from this country to Africa. The
annual amount of such exports is stated in the Official
Tables,! No. 6, of 1836, to be 137,698/. This item
alone would give an increase of 34,424.
* Each slave averaging £4 for his cost price, £250,000 will
purchase 62,500 slaves, and as only one-third of the whole number
purchased are bought with manufactured goods, 62,500 multiplied
by three will give 187,500 for the annual number imported.
t Tables of Revenue, &c, published by authority of Parliament.
58 THE SLAVE TRADE.
4. The Americans also furnish Cuba and Brazil
with arms, ammunition, and goods.
5. East Indian goods also are employed in the
Slave Trade.
It is superfluous to quote authority for the facts
just enumerated, as they are notorious to commercial
men. Thus, by the aid of this circumstantial evi-
dence, of scarcely inferior value to direct and imme-
diate proof, we show that the Slave Trade between
Africa and the West cannot be less than 200,000,
and probably reaches 250,000, annually exported.
There is also another mode of looking at the same
cpiestion, though under an aspect quite distinct.
From an examination of the number of slave-ships
which left Brazil, Cuba, &c, in the year 1829,* as
compared with the number captured in the same
year, it appears that on the average one in thirty
only is taken : now, on the average of the years 1836
and 1837, we have 7,538 negroes as the number cap-
tured, which, being multiplied by 30, gives a total,
226,140.
Thus, then, the estimate of 150,000, at which, on
the authority, principally, of the British Commis-
sioners, I have myself arrived, with the number
which perish on the passage,! make together an
amount, which corresponds with, and is confirmed,
1st, by the actual observation of the —
* Mr. M'Queen communicated this to me last year,
t See Summary — Mortality, Middle Passage, p. 144.
MOHAMMEDAN SLAVE TRADE. 59
Governor of Cape Coast Castle, coupled
with other authorities, by which the
number must amount to . . . 200,000
2ndly, by Mr. M'Queen's researches,
by Avhich the number must amount to 196,000
3rdly, by the estimates founded on the
quantity of goods exported for the
Slave Trade, by which it must amount
to, from . . . 200,000 to 250,000
4thly, by a comparison between the pro-
portion captured with those who es-
cape, by which it must amount to . 226,000
I have now to consider the
Mohammedan Slave Trade.
Hitherto, I have confined my observations to the
traffic across the Atlantic, from the east and west
coasts of Africa ; there is yet another drain upon this
unhappy country, in the immense trade which is car-
ried on for the supply of the Mohammedan markets
of Morocco, Tunis, Tripoli, Egypt, Turkey, Persia,
Arabia, and the borders of Asia.
This commerce comprises two distinct divisions,
1st, the maritime, the victims of which are shipped
from the north-east coast, in Arab vessels ; and 2nd,
the Desert, which is carried on, by means of cara-
vans, to Barbary, Egypt, &c.
The maritime trade is principally conducted by
the subjects of the Imaum of Muskat ; and as this is
a branch of our subject, heretofore but little known,
F
60 THE SLAVE TRADE.
I will make a few remarks as to its extent, the coun-
tries which it supplies, and the amount of its annual
export.
Captain Cogan, of the Indian Navy, who, from
his frequent intercourse with the Imaum, and, from
having been his accredited agent in England, had
the best opportunities of becoming acquainted with
this Prince and his subjects, has informed me that
the Imaum's African dominions extend from Cape
Delgado, about 10° S. lat., to the Rio dos Fuegos,
under the line; and that formerly this coast was no-
torious for its traffic in slaves with Christians as well
as Mohammedans ; the River Lindy, and the Island
of Zanzebar, being the principal marts for the supply
of the Christian market.
In 182*2, a treaty was concluded by Captain
Moresby, R.N., on behalf of the British Government,
with the Imaum, by which the trade with Christian
countries was declared abolished for ever, throughout
his dominions and dependencies ; but this arrange-
ment, it must be remembered, does not in any way
touch upon the Slave Trade carried on by the
Imaum's subjects with those of their own faith.
By means of this reserved trade, slaves are ex-
ported to Zanzebar ; to the ports on both sides of
the Arabian Gulf; to the markets of Egypt, Cairo,
and Alexandria ; to the south part of Arabia ; to
both sides of the Persian Gulf; to the north-west
coasts of India ; to the island of Java, and to most
of the Eastern islands. The vessels which convey
MOHAMMEDAN SLAVE TRADE. 61
these negroes are in general the property of Arabs,
or other Mohammedan traders.
Both Sir Alexander Johnston, who was long resident
at Ceylon in a judicial situation, and Captain Cogan,
have heard the number thus exported reckoned at
50,000 per annum ; but Captain Cogan admits 20,000
to be the number legally exported from Africa, upon
which the Imaum derives a revenue of so much per
head ; and he also admits that there is, besides, an
illicit trade, by which 10,000 more may be smuggled
every year.*
All travellers who have recently visited the chief
seats of this traffic agree in describing it as very
considerable.
"At Muskat," says Lieutenant Wellsted, j " about
4000 slaves of both sexes, and all ages, are disposed
of annually."
Captain Cook, (to whom I have already referred,)
who returned, in 1838, from a trading voyage to the
eastern coast of Africa, informs me, that he was at
Zanzebar at several different periods, and that he
always " found the slave-market, held there daily, fully
supplied. He could not ascertain the number annually
sold, but slaves were constantly arriving in droves, of
* In a despatch dated Zanzebar, May 6th, 1839, Captain Cogan
writes, — " The trade in slaves on this island is much greater than
I had previously understood, as there appears from good authority
to be not less than 50,000 sold annually in the market of Zan-
zebar."
t Wellsted's Travels in Arabia, &c. vol. i. p. 388.
f2
62 THE SLAVE TRADE.
from 50 to 100 each, and found a ready sale ; they
were chiefly," he understood, " purchased by Arab mer-
chants, for the supply of Egypt, Abyssinia, Arabia,
and the ports along the Arabian Gulf, to the markets
of which countries hundreds were carried off and sold
daily."
Many, however, are kept in Zanzebar, where there
are sugar and spice plantations, and where, accord-
ing to Ruschenberger,* the population amounts to
150,000, of which about two-thirds are slaves.
I also find, from Lieutenant Wellsted,f that there
is a Slave Trade carried on with the opposite coast of
Arabia by the Somaulys, who inhabit the coast of
Berbera, between Cape Guardafui and the Straits of
Babel Mandel.
I am therefore warranted in taking Captain
Cogan's estimate, viz., 30,000 per annum, as the
number of negroes annually drained off by the Mo-
hammedan Slave Trade from the east coast of
Africa. J
* Ruschenberger's Voyage, 1835, 6, 7, vol. i. p. 40.
t Wellsted's Travels in Arabia, &c. vol. ii. p. 363.
\ There seems also to be an export of slaves from the Portu-
guese settlements on the east coast of Africa to their possessions
in Hindustan, which, as appeai-s from the accounts of travellers,
commenced towards the close of the seventeenth century, and has
continued to the present time. In a despatch to the Court of
Directors from the Bombay Government, dated 12th May, 1838,
Mr. Erskine, resident at Kattywar, (in the province of Guzerat,)
states, that " a considerable importation of slaves takes place,
at Diu, both directly from the Arabian Gulf, and from Goa, and
MOHAMMEDAN SLAVE TRADE. 63
I now come to the other division, that of the De-
sert, or caravan Slave Trade ; and here I shall briefly
notice the countries which furnish its victims, so that
we may see how vast a region lies under its wither-
ing influence.
By the laws of the Koran,, no Mohammedan is
allowed to enslave one of his own faith. The power-
ful Negro Moslem kingdoms, south of the desert,
are thus, in a great measure, freed from the evils of
this commerce ; and the countries from which it is
supplied are almost entirely Pagan, or only partially
Mohammedan, and comprehend, in addition to the
Pagan tribes (chiefly Tibboos), which are scattered
over parts of the Desert, and lie intermixed among the
Moslem kingdoms, all the northern part of Pagan
Negroland, reaching, in a continuous line, from the
banks of the Senegal to the mountains of Abyssinia
and the sources of the Nile. The Negro Mohamme-
dans, though not themselves sufferers from this Slave
Trade, are active agents in carrying it on.
The Mohammedan towns of Jenne, Timbuctoo ;
Kano and Sackatoo, in Honssa; Kouka and An-
gornou, in Bornou ; Wawa, or Ware, the capital of
Waday ; and Cobbe, the capital of Darfour, — are so
many large warehouses, where the stores of human
Dumaun, from whence they are brought into the province. For
this I may confidently say, I see no remedy whatever, as it rests
entirely with the British Government to say how far they consider
it politic to interfere with their allies, the Portuguese, on this im-
portant question."
64 THE SLAVE TRADE.
merchandise are kept for the supply of the Arab car-
riers or traders, who convey them in caravans across
the Desert. The Soudan* negroes, so conveyed, and
by many different routes,t are not only intended for
the supply of Barbary and Egypt, and the banks of
the Nile, from its mouth to the southern frontiers of
Abyssinia, but, as I have learnt from a variety of
authorities, are exported to Turkey, Arabia, Syria,
Persia, and Bokhara.!
With regard to the number thus annually exported,
the absence of official documents, the imperfect evi-
dence afforded by the statements of African travel-
lers, and the immense extent of the subject itself, in
its geographical relations, render it extremely dif-
ficult to obtain anything approaching to a correct
estimate.
For these reasons, and as I have no wish to go
beyond the bounds of producible proofs, I shall not
estimate the Mohammedan Slave Trade at a greater
extent than that which I am fairly entitled to assume,
from the observations of African travellers.
* The term " Soudan' '* is chiefly applied to the countries lying
to the south of the Sahara, or Great Desert.
t The great posts on the northern side of the Desert, where the
traders collect, appear to be Wednoon, Tafilet, Fez, and Gha-
danies ; Mourzouk, the capital of Fezzan ; and Siout and Shendy,
on the Nile.
X The Hon. Mountstuart Elphinstone, in his account of Caubul
(London, 1839, vol. i. p. 318,) says, " There are slaves in Afgha-
nistan: Abyssinians and Negroes are sometimes brought from
Arabia."
MOHAMMEDAN SLAVE TRADE. 65
Jackson, in his Travels in Africa,* speaks of a
caravan from Timbuctoo to Tafilet, in 1805, con-
sisting of " 2,000 persons, and 1,800 camels."
Riley tells us,t that the Moor, Sidi Hamet, in-
formed him, that in a caravan, with which he tra-
velled in 1807, formed by the merchants who re-
mained in Timbuctoo after the departure of the annual
caravans to the north, there were 2,000 slaves.
Captain Lyon J gives 5,000 or 5,500, as the annual
import into Fezzan ; and Ritchie,§ who travelled
with him, says, that, in 1819, 5,000 slaves arrived at
Mourzouk from Soudan.
RitterJI in his observations on the Slave Trade,
tells us, that the Darfour caravans arrive yearly at
Cairo, from the interior, varying in their numbers
according to time and circumstances ; the smaller
caravans, consisting of from 5,000 to 6,000 (accord-
ing to Browne, ^[ only 1,000) ; the larger, which how-
ever do not often arrive, of about 12,000.** Far
fewer come down the Nile with the Sennaar caravan,
and only a few, from Bornou through Fezzan, by
the Maugraby caravan, although hunting-parties are
* Jackson's Travels, 1809, p. 239.
t Riley's Narrative, p. 382.
I Lyon's Narrative, London, 1821, pp. 188, 189.
§ Ritchie, quoted in the Quart. Review, 1820, No. xlv. p. 228.
|| A German, who published a geographical work in 1820,
p. 380.
f Browne's Travels, 1793, p. 246.
** Memoires sur L'Egypte, torn. iii. p. 303. Lapanouse, iv.
p. 11.
66 THE SLAVE TRADE.
fitted out in Bornou, against the negroes, in the
adjoining highlands.
Browne, who resided in Darfour three years, about
the end of the last century, says, that in the caravan
with which he travelled through the Desert to
Cairo, there were 5,000 slaves.*
Burckhardt, who travelled in Nubia, &c, in 1814,
informs us,f that 5,000 slaves are annually sold in
the market of Shendy, " of whom 2,500 are carried
off by the Souakin merchants, and 1,500 by those of
Egypt ; the remainder go to Dongola and the Be-
douins, who live to the east of Shendy, towards
Akbara and the Red Sea ;" and he afterwards says,+
" Souakin, upon the whole, may be considered as one
of the first Slave Trade markets in eastern Africa ;
it imports annually, from Shendy and Sennaar, from
2,000 to 3,000 slaves, equalling nearly, in this respect,
Esne and Es Siout, in Egypt, and Massouah in
Abyssinia, where, as I afterwards learnt at Djidda,
there is an annual transit from the interior of about
3,500 slaves. From these four points, from the
southern harbours of Abyssinia, and from the So-
mauly and Mozambique coast, it may be computed,
that Egypt and Arabia draw an annual supply of
15,000 or 20,000 slaves, brought from the interior of
Africa." §
* Pinkerton's Voyages, &c, vol. xv. p. 155.
f Burckhardt's Travels, p. 324. J lb. p. 442.
§ In the 'Times' newspaper of the 14th February, 1839, I
find that on the evening of the 11th, at the meeting of the Royal
MOHAMMEDAN SLAVE TKADE. 67
Colonel Leake, who was in Egypt a few years
ago, has informed me, that besides the supply from
Shendy, noticed by Burckliardt, Cairo derives an ad-
ditional number of 5,000 annually, who are brought
to the market there, from Soudan, by other routes.
Dr. Ruppell, in describing the expedition under-
taken by the Pasha of Egypt against the provinces
south of his dominions, in the years of 1820 and
1821, states that "above 40,000 negroes were torn
away from their country."*
Dr. Holroyd, who has lately returned from travel-
ling in Nubia and Kordofan, has stated that Me-
hemet Ali's troops bring into Kordofan captives
from his northern frontiers to the amount of 7,000
or 8,000 annually ; that about one-half so introduced
are retained for the use of the army and the inhabit-
ants, while the other half are sold to the merchants
of Shendy and Es Siout : that 5,000 negroes, annu-
ally, reach Cairo by Es Souan, but that others also
are brought there from Abyssinia by the Red Sea,
and from Darfour, by the Desert; and that slaves
Geographical Society, " the paper read was, an account of the
survey of the south-east coast of Arabia by Captain Haines of the
Indian navy." After describing Aden, he says, " The next town
of importance is Mokhara, containing about 4,500 inhabitants,
with a very considerable trade, particularly in slaves. The
writer has seen exposed for sale in the market, at one time, no
less than 700 Nubian girls, subject to all the brutality and insults
of their masters ; the prices which they fetch varying from
11. to 25/.
* Ruppell's Travels in Abyssinia, vol. i. p. 25.
68 THE SLAVE TRADE.
are conveyed from Sennaar, by three separate routes,
in daily caravans, varying in extent from 5 to 200.
Dr. Holroyd visited the governor of Kordofan in
1837 ; he had then just returned from a " gazzua "
(slave-hunt) at Gebel Nooba, the product of which
was 2,187 negroes. From these, "the physician to
the forces was selecting able-bodied men for the
army ; but so repeatedly has the Pasha waged war
against this chain of mountains, that the population
has been completely drained, and from the above
number, only 250 men were deemed fit for military
service."*
Dr. Bowring, who visited Egypt in 1837, has in-
formed me, that he estimates the annual importation
of slaves into Egypt at from 10,000 to 12,000;
that the arrivals in Kordofan amount to about the
same number : that in 1827, a single caravan
brought 2,820 slaves to Es Siout; but that, in general,
the annual arrivals there fluctuate between 500 and
5,000 ; and that such is the facility of introducing
slaves, that they " now filtrate into Egypt by almost
daily arrivals."
* Statement by Dr. Holroyd, yet unpublished.
f The Allgemeine Zeiting, Oct. 19, 1838, states that " a few
days ago a great caravan, the first for three years past, arrived
from Darfour. It was 50 days in travelling in a straight line
across the Desert from Darfour to Essiout. There it left the
camels, and embarked with the slaves, that it brought, on the
Nile for Cairo. This caravan consists of 18,000 camels, and, be-
sides a vast quantity of the productions of the interior of Africa,
brings nearly 8,000 slaves, who are sold in the slave-market at
Cairo."
MOHAMMEDAN SLAVE TRADE. 69
From the authorities which I have now given, I
think I may fairly estimate the northern or Desert
portion of the Mohammedan Slave Trade at 20,000
per annum.
I am aware that this amount is far below the
numbers given by others who are well acquainted
with the subject ; for example, the eminent eastern
traveller , Count de Laborde, estimates the number
that are annually carried into slavery from East
Soudan, Abyssinia, &c, at 30,000. He also tells us
that in the kingdom of Darfour an independent
Slave Trade is carried on ;* and Burckhardt states,
that Egypt and Arabia together draw an annual
supply of from 15,000 to 20,000 from the same coun-
tries ; but having no desire to depart from the rule I
have laid down, of stating nothing upon conjecture,
however reasonable that conjecture may be, I shall
not take more than
For the Desert trade 20,000f
which, added to the annual export from
the eastern coast, proved to be ... 30,000
gives the number of 50,000
* Chasse aux Negres. Leon cle Laborde. Paris, Dupont et
C'% 1838, pp. 14 and 17.
f The following are some of these authorities : —
1st. For the number exported annually from Soudan to
Morocco, &c, I take Jackson and Riley at . . 2000
2nd. From Soudan to Mourzouk, Lyon and Ritter give . 5000
3rd. From Abyssinia to Arabia, &c, Burckhardt, says about 3500
70 THE SLAVE TRADE.
as the annual amount of the Mohammedan Slave
Trade.*
4th. From Abyssinia, Kordofan, and Darfour, to Egypt
Arabia, &c, I take Browne, Burckhardt, Col. Leake,
Count de Laborde, Dr. Holroyd, and Dr. Bowring, at 12,000
Total for Desert trade 22,500
* It ought to be borne in mind, that I have not taken into the
account the number of slaves which are required for the home
slavery of the Mohammedan provinces and kingdoms in Central
Africa. These are very extensive and populous, and travellers
inform us that the bulk of their population is composed of slaves.
We have, therefore, the powerful nations of Houssa (including the
Felatahs), Bornou, Begarmi, and Darfour, all draining off from
Soudan annual supplies of negroes, for domestic and agricultural
purposes, besides those procured for the foreign trade. On this
head, Burckhardt says,f " I have reason to believe, however, that
the numbers exported from Soudan to Egypt and Arabia bear
only a small proportion to those kept by the Mussulmen of the
southern countries themselves, or, in other words, to the whole
number yearly derived by purchase or by force from the nations
in the interior of Africa. At Berber and Shendy there is scarcely
a house which does not possess one or two slaves, and five or six
are frequently seen in the same family ; the great people and
chiefs keep them by dozens. As high up the Nile as Sennaar, the
same system prevails, as well as westwards to Kordofan, Darfour,
and thence towards Bornou. All the Bedouin tribes, also, Avho
surround those countries, are well stocked with slaves. If we may
judge of their numbers by those kept on the borders of the Nile,
(and I was assured by the traders that slaves were more numerous
in those distant countries than even at Shendy,) it is evident that
the number exported towards Egypt, Arabia, and Barbary, is very
greatly below what remains within the limits of Soudan." He
then states that, from his own observation, the slaves betwixt
t Burckhardt, p. 340.
summary of calculations. 71
Summary.
Such, then, is the arithmetic of the case ; and I
earnestly solicit my reader, before he proceeds
further, to come to a verdict in his own mind, upon
the fairness and accuracy of these figures. I am
aware that it requires far more than ordinary patience
to wade through this mass of calculation ; I have,
however, resolved to present this part of the subject
in its dry and uninviting form, partly from utter
despair of being able, by any language I could use,
to give an adequate image of the extent, variety, and
intensity of human suffering, which must exist if
these figures be true ; and partly from the belief that
a bare arithmetical detail, free from whatever could
excite the imagination or distress the feelings, is best
fitted to carry conviction along with it. I then ask,
is the calculation a fair one ? Some may think that
there is exaggeration in the result, and others may
complain that I have been too rigorous in striking off
every equivocal item, and have made my estimate as if
it were my object and desire, as far as possible, to re-
duce the sum total. It signifies little to the argument,
whether the error be on the one side or the other ; but
Berber and Shendy amount to not less than 12,000, and that,
probably, there are 20,000 slaves in Darfour ; " and every account
agrees in proving that, as we proceed further westward, into the
populous countries of Dar Saley, Bornou, Bagarme, and the king-
doms of Afnou and Houssa, the proportion of the slave population
does not diminish."
72 THE SLAVE TRADE.
it is of material importance that the reader, for the
purpose of following the argument, should now fix
and ascertain the number which seems to him the
reasonable and moderate result from the facts and
figures which have been produced. To me, it seems
just to take, annually,
For the Christian Slave Trade . . 150,000
For the Mohammedan . . . . 50,000
Making a total of , . 200,000
73
CHAPTER II.
MORTALITY.
Hitherto, I have stated less than the half of this
dreadful case. I am now going to show that, be-
sides the 200,000 annually carried into captivity,
there are claims on our compassion for almost count-
less cruelties and murders growing out of the Slave
Trade. I am about to prove that this multitude of
our enslaved fellow men is but the remnant of num-
bers vastly greater, the survivors of a still larger
multitude, over whom the Slave Trade spreads its
devastating hand, and that for every ten who reach
Cuba or Brazil, and become available as slaves, four-
teen, at least, are destroyed.
This mortality arises from the following causes : —
1 . The original seizure of the slaves.
2. The march to the coast, and detention there.
3. The middle passage.
4. The sufferings after capture and after landing.
And
5. The initiation into slavery, or the " seasoning,"
as it is termed by the planters.
It will be necessary for me to make a few remarks
on each of these heads; and 1st, As to the mortality
incident to the period of
the slave trade.
Seizure.
« The whole, or the greater part, of that immense continent is a field of
warfare and desolation ; a wilderness, in which the inhabitants are wolves
to each other." — Speech of Bryan Edwards.
On the authority of public documents, parlia-
mentary evidence, and the works of African travel-
lers, it appears that the principal and almost the
only cause of war in the interior of Africa, is the
desire to procure slaves for traffic ; and that every
species of violence, from the invasion of an army to
that of robbery by a single individual, is had re-
course to, for the attainment of this object.
Lord Muncaster, in his able historical sketches
of the Slave Trade,* in which he gives us an
analysis of the evidence taken before the Privy
Council and the House of Commons about the year
1790, clearly demonstrates the truth of my assertion,
at the period when he published his work (1792);
and the authorities from that time, down to the pre-
sent day, as clearly show, that the most revolting
features of the Slave Trade, in this respect, (at
least, as regards the native chiefs and slave-traders
of Africa,) have continued to exist, and do now exist.
Bruce, who travelled in Abyssinia in 1770, in
describing the slave-hunting expeditions there, says :
" The grown-up men are all killed, and are then
mutilated, parts of their bodies being always carried
away as trophies ; several of the old mothers are
i * Lord Muncaster's Historical Sketches. London, 1792.
MORTALITY INCIDENT TO SEIZURE, 75
also killed, while others, frantic with fear and de-
spair, kill themselves. The boys and girls of a
more tender age are then carried off in brutal
triumph."*
Mr. Wilberforce, in his letter to his constituents
in 1807,f has described the mode in which slaves are
usually obtained in Africa, and he quotes several
passages from the work of the enterprising traveller,
Mungo Park, bearing particularly on this subject.
Park says, " The king of Bambarra having declared
war against Kaarta, and dividing his army into small
detachments, overran the country, and seized on the
inhabitants before they had time to escape ', and in a
few days the whole kingdom of Kaarta became a
scene of desolation. This attack was soon retaliated ;
Daisy, the king of Kaarta, took with him 800 of his
best men, and surprised, in the night, three large
villages near Kooniakary, in which many of his
traitorous subjects had taken up their residence ; all
these, and indeed all the able men who fell into
Daisy's hands, were immediately put to death. "J
Mr. Wilberforce afterwards says : "In another part
of the country, we learn from the most respectable
testimony, that a practice prevails, called ' village
breaking.' It is precisely the ' tegria' of Mr. Park,
with this difference, that, though often termed
* Brucc's Travels in Abyssinia.
f Wilberforce's Letter on the Abolition of the Slave Trade.
London, 1807, p. 392.
\ Parle's Travels, London, 1817, vol. i. p. 164.'
G
76 THE SLAVE TRADE.
making war, it is acknowledged to be practised for
the express purpose of obtaining victims for the slave-
market. The village is attacked in the night; if
deemed needful, to increase the confusion, it is set
on fire, and the wretched inhabitants, as they are
flying naked from the flames, are seized and carried
into slavery." " These depredations are far more
commonly perpetrated by the natives on each other,
and on a larger or smaller scale, according to the
power and number of the assailants, and the resort
of ships to the coast ; it prevails so generally, as
throughout the whole extent of Africa, to render
person and property utterly insecure."* And in
another place, "Every man who has acquired any
considerable property, or who has a large family,
the sale of which will produce a considerable profit,
excites in the chieftain near whom he resides the
same longings which are called forth in the wild
beast by the exhibition of his proper prey ; and he
himself lives in a continual state of suspicion and
terror."t
The statements of Mr. Wilberforce have been
corroborated by Mr. Bryan Edwards, (from whom
I have already quoted,) himself a dealer in slaves,
and an able and persevering advocate for the con-
tinuance of the traffic* In a speech delivered in
the Jamaica Assembly, he says, " I am persuaded
that Mr. Wilberforce has been very rightly informed
as to the manner in which slaves are very generally
* Wilberforce's Letter, &c, p. 23. t Ibid. p. 28.
MORTALITY INCIDENT TO SEIZURE. 77
procured. The intelligence I have collected from
my own negroes abundantly confirms his account ;
and I have not the smallest doubt that in Africa the
effects of this trade are precisely such as he repre-
sents them to be."
But it may be said, admitting these statements to
be true, they refer to a state of things in Africa which
does not now exist. A considerable period of time
has indeed elapsed since these statements were made ;
but it clearly appears, that the same system has ob-
tained, throughout the interior of Africa, down to the
present time ; nor is it to be expected that any favour-
able change will take place during the continuance of
the slave-traffic.
Professor Smith, who accompanied Captain Tuckey
in the expedition to the Congo in 1816, says, " Every
man I have conversed with acknowledges that, if
white men did not come for slaves, the wars, which
nine times out of ten result from the European Slave
Trade, would be proportionally less frequent."*
Captain Lyon states that, when he was at Fezzan
in 1819, Mukni, the reigning Sultan, was continually
engaged in these slave-hunts, in one of which 1,800
were captured, all of whom, excepting a very few,
either perished on their march before they reached
Fezzan, or were killed by their captor.f
Major Gray, who travelled in the vicinity of the
River Gambia, and Dupuis, who was British Consul
* Tuckey's Expedition, &c.,"p. 187.
t Lyon's Travels, p. 129.
G 2
78 THE SLAVE TRADE.
at Asliantee about the same period, 1820, both agree
in attributing the wars, which they knew to be fre-
quent in the countries where they travelled, to the
desire of procuring slaves for traffic* Dupuis nar-
rates a speech of the king of Ashantee. " Then my
fetische made me strong, like my ancestors, and I
killed Dinkera, and took his gold, and brought more
than 20,000 slaves to Coomassie. Some of these
people being bad men, I washed my stool in their
blood for the fetische. But, then, some were good
people, and these I sold or gave to my captains ;
many, moreover, died, because this country does not
grow too much corn, like Sarem, and what can I do ?
Unless I kill or sell them, they will grow strong and
kill my people. Now, you must tell my master (the
King of England) that these slaves can work for him,
and if he wants 10,000 he can have them."t
Captain Moresby, a naval officer, who was stationed
on the eastern coast in 1821, and who had peculiar
opportunities of learning the mode in which slaves
were obtained, informed me that "The Arab traders,
from the coast of Zanzebar, go up the country, pro-
vided with trinkets and beads, strung in various
forms ; thus they arrive at a point where little
intercourse has taken place, and where the inhabit-
ants are in a state of barbarism ; here they display
their beads and trinkets to the natives, according
to the number of slaves they want. A certain
* Gray's Travels in Western Africa. London, 1S25, p. 97.
•j- Dupuis' Residence in Ashantee. London, 1824, p. 164.
MORTALITY INCIDENT TO SEIZURE. 79
village is doomed to be surprised ; in a short time
the Arabs have their choice of its inhabitants —
the old and infirm are either left to perish, or be
slaughtered."
In 1822, our Minister at Paris thus addressed
Count de Villele : " There seems to be scarcely a spot
on that coast (from Sierra Leone to Cape Mount)
which does not show traces of the Slave Trade,
with all its attendant horrors ; for the arrival of a
ship, in any of the rivers on the windward coast,
being the signal for war between the natives, the
hamlets of the weaker party are burnt, and the
miserable survivors carried off and sold to the slave-
traders."
We have obtained most valuable information as to
the interior of Africa from the laborious exertions o
Denham and Clapperton. They reached Soudan, or
Nigritia, by the land-route through Fezzan and
Bornou, in 1823, and the narrative of their journey
furnishes many melancholy proofs of the miseries to
which Africa is exposed through the demands for the
Slave Trade. Major Denham says : " On attacking a
place, it is the custom of the country instantly to fire
it ; and, as they (the villages) are all composed of
straw huts only, the whole is shortly devoured by the
flames. The unfortunate inhabitants fly quickly
from the devouring element, and fall immediately
into the hands of their no less merciless enemies,
who surround the place ; the men are quickly mas-
sacred, and the women and children lashed together
80 THE SLAVE TRADE.
and made slaves."* Denham then tells us that the
Begharmi nation had been discomfited by the Sheik of
Bornou, " in five different expeditions, when at least
20,000 poor creatures were slaughtered, and three-
fourths of that number, at least, driven into slavery. "t
And, in speaking of these wars, he uses this re-
markable expression — " The season of the year had
arrived (25th November) when the sovereigns of
these countries go out to battle." He also narrates
the terms of an alliance betwixt the Sheik of Bornou
and the Sultan of Mandara. " This treaty of alli-
ance was confirmed by the Sheik's receiving in mar-
riage the daughter of the Sultan, and the marriage-
portion was to be the produce of an immediate expe-
dition into the Kerdy country, by the united forces of
these allies. The results were as favourable as the
most savage confederacy could have anticipated.
Three thousand unfortunate wretches were dragged
from their native wilds, and sold to perpetual slavery,
while probably double that number were sacrificed
to obtain them"%
Denham, himself, accompanied an expedition
against Mandara, one of the results of which was,
that the town, " Darkalla, was quickly burnt, and
another smaller town near it, and the few inhabitants
who were found in them, chiefly infants and aged
persons, were put to death without mercy, and thrown
into the flames. "§
* Denham and Clapperton's Travels, &c. in Africa. London,
1826, p. 164. t lb. p. 214. J lb. p. 116. § lb. p. 131.
MORTALITY INCIDENT TO SEIZURE. 81
Commodore Owen, who was employed in the sur-
vey of the eastern coast of Africa about the years
1823 and 1824, says, " The riches of Quilimane con-
sisted, in a trifling degree, of gold and silver, but
principally of grain, which was produced in such
quantities as to supply Mozambique. But the intro-
duction of the Slave Trade stopped the pursuits of
industry, and changed those places, where peace and
agriculture had formerly reigned, into the seat of war
and bloodshed. Contending tribes are now con-
stantly striving to obtain, by mutual conflict, prisoners
as slaves for sale to the Portuguese, who excite these
wars, and fatten on the blood and wretchedness they
produce."
In speaking of Inhambane, he says, " The slaves
they do obtain are the spoils of war among the petty
tribes, who, were it not for the market they thus find
for their prisoners, would in all likelihood remain in
peace with each other, and probably be connected by
bonds of mutual interest."
Mr. Ashmun, agent of the American Colonial
Society, in writing to the Board of Directors, from
Liberia, in 1823, says," The following incident I
relate, not for its singularity, for similar events take
place, perhaps, every month in the year, but it has
fallen under my own observation, and I can vouch
for its authenticity : — King Boatswain, our most
powerful supporter, and steady friend among the
natives, (so he has uniformly shown himself,) received
* Owen's Voyage, &c, vol. i. p. 287.
82 THE SLAVE TRADE.
a quantity of goods on trust from a French slaver,
for which he stipulated to pay young slaves — he
makes it a point of honour to be punctual to his
engagements. The time was at hand when he expected
the return of the slaver, and he had not the slaves.
Looking around on the peaceable tribes about him
for his victims, he singled out the Queahs, a small
agricultural and trading people of most inoffensive
character. His warriors were skilfully distributed
to the different hamlets, and making a simultaneous
assault on the sleeping occupants in the dead of the
night, accomplished, without difficulty or resistance,
in one hour, the annihilation of the whole tribe ; —
every adult, man and woman, was murdered — every
hut fired ! Very young children, generally, shared
the fate of their parents ; the boys and girls alone
were reserved to pay the Frenchman."*
The Colonization Herald of April 29, 1837, gives the
following extract from a number of the Liberia Herald
recently received : — " The wars among the natives
contiguous to us continue to rage with increasing fury
The whole line of coast from the Gallinas to Grand
Sesters is in a state of fearful commotion."
" Wars increase with the demand for slaves, and
the demand is urgent in "proportion to the scarcity.
And that slaves in these belligerent tribes are becoming
scarce there can be no doubt. The requisite number
being made up of the free, every method of kidnap-
ping and violence is resorted to at the instigation of
* Ashmun's Life. New York, 1835, p. 160.
MORTALITY INCIDENT TO SEIZURE. 83
these fiends. They are always to be found near the
scenes of warfare^ ready to purchase with merchandise
the unhappy victims of wars that they themselves
excite for the purpose.
" Immediately on the breaking out of the war be-
tween the Dey tribes and that of the Gorah, a slave
factory was established in the capital town of each
tribe. Both of these factories, we believe, belonged
to one concern. Thus, while a powerful temptation
was continually presented to the cupidity of both
parties, a ready market was always at hand, in which
they could dispose of the victims of their avarice.
Both of these towns have been sacked, each tribe pre-
vailing in its turn ; and it is with feelings far from
painful, that we add, the slavers were also taken."
The Commissioners at Sierra Leone, in a despatch
of April 10, 1825, speaking of a great increase in the
Slave Trade, which had then lately taken place on the
coast between that colony and the Gallinas, state that
the increased demand for slaves consequent thereon
was "the cause of the destructive war which had
raged in the Sherbro' for the last eighteen months,
between the ' Cassoos,' a powerful nation living in
the interior, and the Fi people, and Sherbro' Bulloms,
who live near the water-side, andare completely under
the influence of the slaving chiefs and factors settled
in the neighbourhood."* The Cassoos are repre-
sented as having carried fire, rapine, and murder,
throughout the different villages through which they
* Class A, 1826, p. 7.
84 THE SLAVE TRADE.
passed, most of the women and children of which,
together with the prisoners, were immediately sold to
the slave-factors, who were at hand to receive them.
We have also, on this head, the more recent testi-
mony of Lander and Laird. Lander accompanied
Clapperton from Badagry to Sockatoo, and on the
death of Clapperton he returned to Badagry, with
little variation, by the same route. In 1830 he was
sent out by the British Government to Africa, and
succeeded in navigating the Niger from Boossa, where
Park was drowned, to the sea, in the Bight of Benin.
In his journal, he observes that slavery has " pro-
duced the most baleful effects, causing anarchy, in-
justice, and oppression to reign in Africa, and exciting
nation to rise up against nation, and man against
man ; it has covered the face of the country with
desolation. All these evils, and many others, has
slavery accomplished ; in return for which the Euro-
peans, for whose benefit, and by whose connivance
and encouragement it has flourished so extensively,
have given to the artless natives ardent spirits,
tawdry silk dresses, and paltry necklaces of beads."*
Laird ascended the Niger, and its tributary the
Tschadda, in 1832, and was an eye-witness of the
cruelties consequent on the Slave Trade, while in the
river near to the confluence of the two streams, He
says, speaking of the incursions of the Felatahs,
" Scarcely a night passed, but we heard the screams
of some unfortunate beings that were carried off into
* Lander's Records. London, 1830, vol. i. p. 38.
MORTALITY INCIDENT TO SEIZURE. 85
slavery by these villanous depredators. The inha-
bitants of the towns in the route of the Felatahs fled
across the river on the approach of the enemy." " A
few days after the arrival of the fugitives, a column
of smoke rising in the air, about five miles above the
confluence, marked the advance of the Felatahs; and
in two days afterwards the whole of the towns, includ-
ing Addah Cuddah, and five or six others, were in a
blaze. The shrieks of the unfortunate wretches that
had not escaped, answered by the loud wailings and
lamentations of their friends and relations (encamped
on the opposite bank of the river), at seeing them
carried off into slavery, and their habitations de-
stroyed, produced a scene, which, though common
enough in the country, had seldom, if ever before,
been witnessed by European eyes, and showed to me,
in a more striking light than I had hitherto beheld it,
the horrors attendant upon slavery."*
Rankin, in the narrative of his visit to Sierra
Leone in 1833, says, the warlike Sherbros had re-
cently invaded the territories of the Timmanees, and
had fallen on the unguarded Rokel, which became a
prey to the flames. " The inhabitants who could not
escape across the river to Magbelly perished, or were
made slaves, and the town was reduced to ashes. "t
Colonel Nicolls, late Governor at Fernando Po,
has informed me, that when he visited the town of
* Laird and Oldfield's Narrative. London, 1837, vol. i. pp. 149,
247.
f Rankin's Sierra Leone. London, 1836, vol. ii. p. 259.
86 THE SLAVE TRADE.
Old Calebar in 1834, he found the natives boasting
of a predatory excursion, in which they had recently
been engaged, in which they had surprised a village,
killed those who resisted, and carried off the remainder
as slaves. In alluding to this excursion, Colonel
Nicolls heard an African boy, who had formed one of
the party, declare that he had killed three himself!
The Rev. Mr. Fox, a Wesleyan missionary at the
Gambia, in a letter dated 13th March, 1837, addressed
to the Secretary of the Wesleyan Missionary Society,
says, — " I visited Jamalli a few weeks ago, and also
Laming, another small Mandingo town, on the way :
at the latter place I counted twelve huts that had
been destroyed by fire, and at the former about forty.
Proceeding to the Foulah town, about half a mile
eastward, I found it was not in the least injured, but,
like the other two, was without inhabitants ; not a
soul was to be seen."
" Foolokolong, a large Foulah town in Kimming-
ton's dominions, has lately been attacked by Wooli,
and, I believe, nearly the whole of it destroyed,
the cattle driven away, many of the inhabitants
killed, and many others taken prisoners. On Wed-
nesday evening last I returned from a hasty visit to
the upper river. I went as far as Fattatenda. At
Bannatenda, not quite half the way, I found a poor
aged Foulah woman in irons, who, upon inquiry, I
found was from Foolokolong, one of the many who
were captured in the recent war, and that she was
sent on the south side of the river to be sold, for a
MORTALITY INCIDENT TO SEIZURE. 87
horse. I immediately rescued the half-famished and
three-parts-naked female from the horrors of slavery
by giving a good horse, broke off her chains, and
brought her to this settlement, where, by a singular
but happy coincidence, she met with her own brother
(who lives upon Hattaba's land), who, hearing that
she, her daughter, and daughter's children, had been
taken in the war, had been a considerable way up
the river to inquire after them, but heard nothing of
them, and had consequently returned. I, of course,
gave the woman up to her brother, from whom, as
well as herself, and several Foulahs who came to see
her, I received a number of blessings."
In another part of the same letter he writes, — -
" From the king himself I learned that they brought
350 Foulahs from Foolokolong (Kimmington's
largest Foulah town), besides 100 whom they killed
on the spot."
In another letter, dated 5th January, 1838, Mr.
Fox says, " The Bambarras have proceeded a con-
siderable distance down the north bank of the river
(Gambia), have pillaged and destroyed several small
towns, taken some of the inhabitants into slavery,
and a few people have been killed."
" The neighbourhood of McCarthy's Island is
again in a very disturbed state. Scarcely are the
rains over, and the produce of a plentiful harvest
gathered in, ere the noise of battle and the din of
warfare is heard at a distance, with all its attendant
horrors ; mothers, snatching up their children with a
88 THE SLAVE TRADE.
few necessary articles, flee for their lives ; towns,
after being pillaged of as much cattle, &c. as the
banditti require, are immediately set on fire ; columns
of smoke ascend the heavens ; the cries of those who
are being butchered may be more easily conceived
than expressed ; and those who escape destruction
are carried into the miseries of hopeless slavery. A
number of Bambarras are again on the north bank of
the river, not far from this place, and the poor Foil-
lahs at Jamalli have consequently fled to this island
for protection, bringing with them as many of their
cattle, and other things, as they could."
The Rev, Mr. M'Brair, another Wesleyan mis-
sionary, who has seen much of the interior of Africa,
in the vicinity of the Gambia, from which he has
recently returned to this country, makes the follow-
ing observations, in a letter also to the Secretary of
the Wesleyan Missionary Society :
" On other occasions a party of men-hunters
associate together, and, falling suddenly upon a small
town or village during the night, they massacre all
the men that offer any resistance, and carry away the
rest of the inhabitants as the best parts of their spoil.
Or, when a chieftain thinks himself sufficiently pow-
erful, he makes the most frivolous excuses for waging
war upon his neighbour, so that he may spoil his
country of its inhabitants. Having been in close
connexion with many of the liberated Africans in
"McCarthy's Island, 250 miles up the Gambia, and
also in St, Mary's, at the mouth of that river, we
MORTALITY INCIDENT TO SEIZURE. 89
had many opportunities of learning the various modes
in which they had been captured ; from which it
appeared that the wholesale method of seizure is by
far the most frequent, and that, without this plan, a
sufficient number of victims could not be procured
for the market ; so that it may be called the prevail-
ing way of obtaining slaves."
" Whilst I was in M'Carthy's Island, a capture
took place at the distance of half a day's journey
from my abode. The king of Woolli, on a very
slight pretence, fell upon a village during the night,
slew six men, and carried off forty captives. The
inhabitants also of a neighbouring place were destined
to the same fate, but having had timely notice of his
approach, they saved themselves by a precipitous
flight, and McCarthy's Island was filled for a time
with refugees from all the country round about."
The Rev. Mr. Morgan, another Wesleyan mis-
sionary, lately from the Gambia, writes to the Se-
cretary as follows : — " I feel confident that the Slave
Trade has established feuds among them (the African
tribes around the Gambia), by which they will be
embroiled in war for generations to come, unless the
disposition be destroyed by the Christian religion, or
their circumstances be changed by civilization."
A private letter, dated Rio Nunez, 26th June,
1839, states, "There are now at this present mo-
ment five slavers in the Rio Pongas : the whole are
under American colours, and it is likely, before two
months are over, the natives of that river will be at
90 THE SLAVE TRADE
War again, as they were but a few months ago ; all
on account of these slavers, who are the instigators
of all the disturbances and war on the coast."
I must not leave this part of my subject without
calling attention to the extraordinary facts which
have recently been made public, regarding the prac-
tices of the Pasha of Egypt, and the chiefs in Nubia
and Darfour. There has been revealed to us a new
feature in the mode of procuring negroes for slaves;
and we find that troops regularly disciplined are, at
stated seasons, led forth to hunt down and harry the
defenceless inhabitants of Eastern Nigritia.
In a despatch from Lieutenant-Colonel Campbell,
Her Majesty's Consul at Cairo, of date 1st December
1837,* we are informed that the Consul waited on
Mahommed Ali, and communicated to him " that
statements had gone home to the Government and
people of England, from eye-witnesses, that slave-
hunts (gazzua) had been carried on by the officers
and the troops of the Pasha ; that large numbers of
negroes had been taken, and had been distributed
among the soldiers, in liquidation of the arrears of
their pay ; that on one occasion the gazzua had col-
lected 2,700 slaves, of whom 250 had been forced
among the ranks of his army, and the remainder had
been divided among the officers and soldiers at fixed
prices, according to the state of their arrears."
The Pasha professed not to know that his army
had been employed in slave-hunts for the purpose of
* Class B, Further Series, 1837, p. 69.
MORTALITY INCIDENT TO SEIZURE. 91
discharging arrears of pay ; but he admitted that he
was aware that his officers had carried on the Slave
Trade for their own account, " a conduct of which he
by no means approved." We have no further parti-
culars in this important despatch : but the enterprise
of a traveller, Count de Laborde, who has lately re-
turned from Nubia and Egypt, will enable me to
introduce those of my readers who have not seen his
work,* to the scenes of cruelty and devastation per-
petrated by the pasha's troops, which he has graphically
described.
The narrative, of which I can only give a brie
outline, was communicated to him by a French
officer, who went to Cairo in 1828, and resided ten
years in Egypt.
M. there learnt that four expeditions, called
gaswahs, annually set out from Obeid, the capital of
Kordofan, towards the south, to the mountains
inhabited by the Nubas negroes. The manner and
object of their departure are thus described : " One
day he heard a great noise ; the whole village ap-
peared in confusion ; the cavalry were mounted, and
the infantry discharging their guns in the air, and
increasing the uproar with their still more noisy
hurras. M. , on inquiring the cause of the
rejoicing, was exultingly told by a follower of the
troop, " It is the gasAvah." " The gaswah ! for
what — gazelles ?" " Yes, gazelles ; here are the
nets, ropes, and chains ; they are to be brought home
* Chasse aux Negres, Leon de Laborde, Paris, I83S.
H
92 THE SLAVE TRADE.
alive." On the return of the expedition, all the
people went out, singing and dancing, to meet the
hunters. M. went out also, wishing to join in
the rejoicing. He told Count Laborde he never could
forget the scene presented to his eyes. What did he
see ? What spoil did these intrepid hunters, after
twenty days of toil, drag after them ? Men in chains ;
old men carried on litters, because unable to walk ;
the wounded dragging their weakened limbs with
pain, and a multitude of children following their
mothers, who carried the younger ones in their
arms. Fifteen hundred negroes, corded, naked, and
wretched, escorted by 400 soldiers in full array. This
Avas the gaswah. These the poor gazelles taken
in the Desert. He himself afterwards accompanied
one of these gaswahs. The expedition consisted of
400 Egyptian soldiers, 100 Bedouin cavalry, and
twelve village chiefs, with peasants carrying pro-
visions. On arriving at their destination, which
they generally contrive to do before dawn, the cavalry
wheel round the mountain, and by a skilful move-
ment form themselves into a semicircle on one side,
whilst the infantry enclose it on the other. The ne-
groes, whose sleep is so profound that they seldom
have time to provide for their safety, are thus com-
pletely entrapped. At sunrise the troops commence
operations by opening a fire on the mountain with
musketry and cannon ; immediately the heads of the
wretched mountaineers may be seen in all directions,
among the rocks and trees, as they gradually retreat,
MORTALITY INCIDENT TO SEIZURE. 93
dragging after them the young and infirm. Four
detachments armed with bayonets are then de-
spatched up the mountain in pursuit of the fugitives,
whilst a continual fire is kept up from the musketry
and cannon below, which are loaded only with
powder, as their object is rather to dismay than to
murder the inhabitants. The more courageous natives,
however, make a stand by the mouths of the caves,
dug for security against their enemies. They throw
their long poisoned javelins, covering themselves
with their shields, while their wives and children
stand by them and encourage them with their voices ;
but when the head of the family is killed, they sur-
render without a murmur. When struck by a ball,
the negro, ignorant of the nature of the wound, may
generally be seen rubbing it with earth till he falls
through loss of blood. The less courageous fly with
their families to the caves, whence the hunters expel
them by firing pepper into the hole. The negroes,
almost blinded and suffocated, run into the snares
previously prepared, and are put in irons. If after
the firing no one makes his appearance, the hunters
conclude that the mothers have killed their children,
and the husbands their wives and themselves. When
the negroes are taken, their strong attachment to
their families and lands is apparent. They refuse
to stir, some clinging to the trees with all their
strength, while others embrace their wives and
children so closely, that it is necessary to separate
them with the sword ; or they are bound to a horse,
h2
94 THE SLAVE TRADE.
and are dragged over brambles and rocks until they
reach the foot of the mountain, bruised, bloody, and
disfigured. If they still continue obstinate, they
are put to death.
Each detachment, having captured its share of the
spoil, returns to the main body, and is succeeded by
others, until the mountain, " de battue en battue," is
depopulated. If from the strength of the position, or
the obstinacy of the resistance, the first assault is un-
successful, the General adopts the inhuman expedient
of reducing them by thirst ; this is easily effected by
encamping above the springs at the foot of the moun-
tain, and thus cutting off their only supply of water.
The miserable negroes often endure this siege for a
week ; and may be seen gnawing the bark of trees
to extract a little moisture, till at length they are
compelled to exchange their country, liberty, and
families, for a drop of water. They every day
approach nearer, and retreat on seeing the soldiers,
until the temptation of the water shown them be-
comes too strong to be resisted. At length they
submit to liave the manacles fastened on their hands,
and a heavy fork suspended to their necks, which they
are obliged to lift at every step.
The march from the Nuba mountains to Obeid is
short. From thence they are sent to Cairo. There
the pasha distributes them as he thinks proper ; the
aged, infirm, and wounded, are given to the Be-
douins, who are the most merciless of masters, and
exact their due of hard labour with a severity pro-
MORTALITY INCIDENT TO SEIZURE. 95
portioned to the probable short duration of the lives
of their unhappy victims.
At Obeid alone 6000 human beings are annually
dragged into slavery, and that at the cost of 2000
more, who are killed in the capture. The king of
.Darfour also imports for sale yearly 8000 or 9000
slaves, a fourth of whom usually die during the
fatigues of a forced inarch : they are compelled, by
the scarcity of provisions, to hurry forward with all
speed. In vain the exhausted wretches supplicate
for one day's rest ; they have no alternative but to
push on, or be left behind a prey to the hungry
jackals and hysenas. "On one occasion," says the
narrator, " when, a few days after the march of a cara-
van, I rapidly crossed the same desert, mounted on
a fleet dromedary, I found my way by the newly-
mangled human carcases, and by them I was guided
to the nightly halt."
Dr. Holroyd, whom I have already mentioned, in
a letter to me of date 14th January, 1839, says, in re-
ference to these " gazouas/' of the Egyptian troops,
" I should think, if my information be correct, that, in
addition to 7000 or 8000 taken captive, at least 1500
were killed in defence or by suffocation at the time of
being taken ; for I learnt that, when the blacks saw
the troops advancing, they took refuge in caves ; the
soldiers then fired into the caverns, and, if this did
not induce them to quit their places of concealment,
they made fires at the entrances, and either stifled
the negroes, or compelled them to surrender. Where
96 THE SLAVE TRADE.
this latter method of taking them was adopted, it was
not an uncommon circumstance to see a female with
a child at her breast, who had been wounded by a
musket-ball, staggering from her hiding-place, and
dying immediately after her exit."*
* In the same letter, dated January 14, 1839, Dr. Holroyd
having mentioned that he had " brought from Kordofan, at his
own request, a negro (an intelligent boy) about twelve years
of age, who had been seized by Mahomed Ali's troops from
Gebel Noobah, and from whom all particulars can be ob-
tained in reference to that inhuman method of taking the blacks,"
I asked that the boy might be questioned as to what he had
seen of the slave-hunts. Dr. Holroyd has favoured me with
the following " Statement of Almas, a negro boy taken in the
gazoua of Gebel Noobah, three years ago, by the troops of Maho-
med Ali Pasha. Almas is a native of Korgo, a very considerable
district on the south side of Gebel Noobah; it is governed by a
sheik, who is under the command of a local sultan. He was
living at Korgo at the time of his capture, and says, that the
pasha's troops made the attack during the night, whilst the ne-
groes were sleeping ; that they fired repeatedly upon the district
with cannon and muskets, both loaded with shot ; and that they
burnt the straw huts of the negroes. As they escaped from their
burning huts they were seized by the troops : many, especially
the children, were burnt to death, and many were killed. Those
who ran away, and were pursued by the soldiers, defended them-
selves with stones, spears, and trombashes ; the latter, an iron
weapon in common use among the natives of these mountains.
" The negroes retreated to the caves in the sides of the moun-
tains, from whence they were eventually obliged to come forth,
from fear of suffocation from the fires made at the entrances, or
from want of food and water. He never heard of pepper, men-
tioned by Laborde, as having been used in loading the guns, or
of firing it into the caves to blind or stifle the negroes. Pronged
stakes were fastened round the throats of the men, and their
hands were fixed in blocks of wood nailed together. Boys, of
twelve or fourteen years, had their hands only manacled, and the
MORTALITY INCIDENT TO SEIZURE. 97
I could add, were it necessary, a thousand other
instances of the scenes of cruelty and bloodshed
which are exhibited in Africa, having their origin in
the Slave Trade ; but enough has been said to prove
the assertion with which I set out, that the principal
and almost the only cause of war in the interior of
Africa is the desire to procure slaves for traffic ; and
that the only difference betwixt the former times and
the present day is this — that the mortality consequent
on the cruelties of the system has increased in pro-
portion to the increase of the traffic, which, it ap m
pears, has doubled in amount, as compared with the
period antecedent to 1790.
I shall now estimate, as nearly as I can, the
probable extent of mortality peculiarly incident to
the period of seizure; but the difficulty of this is
great, because our authorities on this point are
not numerous. Lord Muncaster notices a state-
ment of an African Governor to the Committee of
young children and women were without any incumbrance. Two
or three times Almas saw a stubborn slave drawn (to use his
expression) like a carriage, by a horse across the rocks, until he
was dead. He cannot say how many were killed in the attack ;
be thinks 500 were taken along with him from Korgo, but many
of these died of thirst, hunger, and fatigue, on their march to Kor-
dofan. Almas's father and brother were captured along with him,
and the former was compelled to wear the pronged stick from
Gebel Noobah to Kordofan. They are both soldiers at Sobeyet.
His mother was seized by the sultan of Baggarah, who makes ex-
peditions continually against the inhabitants of Gebel Noobah."
98 THE SLAVE TRADE.
1790: — " Mr. Miles said, he will not admit it to be
war, only skirmish-fighting ; and yet," Lord Mun-
caster adds, " Villault, who was on the Gold Coast
in 1663, tells ns, that in one of these ' skirmishes'
above 60,000 men were destroyed ; and Bosnian says
that in two of these ' skirmishes ' the outrage was so
great, that above 100,000 men were killed upon the
spot. Mr. Devaynes also informs us that, while he
was in the country, one of these ' skirmishes ' hap-
pened between the kings of Dahorney and Eyo, in
which 60,000 lost their lives."* '
The Rev. John Newton, rector of St. Mary's
Woolnooth (who at one period of his life was en-
gaged in slave-traffic on the coast of Africa), observes,
" I verily believe that the far greater part of the
wars in Africa would cease, if the Europeans would
cease to tempt them by offering goods for slaves ;
and, though they do not bring legions into the field,
their Avars are bloody. I believe the captives reserved
for sale are fewer than the slain. I have not suffi-
cient data to warrant calculation, but I suppose that
not less than 100,000 slaves are exported annually
from all parts of Africa. If but an equal number are
killed in war, and if many of these wars are kindled
by the incentive of selling their prisoners, what an
annual accumulation of blood must there be crying
against the nations of Europe concerned in this
trade !"t
* Lord Muncaster on the Slave Trade, p. 42.
t Newton on the Slave Trade. London, 1788, p. 30.
MORTALITY INCIDENT TO SEIZURE. 99
I have no modern authority to support the spe-
cific statements of Newton and Lord Muncaster,
excepting that of Denham, who says, " That in one
instance twenty thousand were hilled, for sixteen
thousand carried away into slavery ;"* and in another
case, that " probably more than double" the number
of those captured for slaves fell a sacrifice in the
onset of the captors. \
The second head of mortality, arising from the
March, and Detention before being embarked, must
now be considered ; and first as to the
March.
<l The Begarmese," says Browne, in his journey
to Darfour in 1793, " attack on horseback the
Kardee, Serrowa, Showa, Battah, and Mulgui tribes,
and seizing as many captives as possible, drive them
like cattle to Begarmi."J Mungo Park informs us
that '' by far the greater number of slaves purchased
by Europeans on the coast, are brought down in
large caravans from the inland countries, of which
many are unknown even by name to the Europeans.
" I was met," he says, "by a coifle (caravan) of
slaves, about seventy in number, coming from Sego.
They w T ere tied together by their necks, with thongs
of bullocks' hide twisted like a rope, seven slaves
upon a thong, and a man with a musket between
* Denliam's Narrative, p. 214. f Ibid., p. 11G.
\ See Leyden's Discoveries, vol. i. p. 413.
100 THE SLAVE TRADE.
every seven. Many of the slaves were ill-condi-
tioned, and a great number of them women ; they
were going to Morocco by the way of Ludamar and
the Great Desert."*
In another part of his journal, Park says that,
on his route to Pisania, (a distance of 500 miles,)
he joined a coffle, under a slattee (slave-merchant),
Kaarfa, who was particularly kind to him, and whom
he describes as " a worthy negro, with a mind above
his condition — a good creature," and therefore not
likely to be among the most cruel, in the treatment
of his slaves. While this slattee was collecting the
coffle, Park arrived at his house. Kaarfa liberally
offered to keep him there till the country should be
fit for travelling. On the third day after his arrival
Park fell ill with the fever, and he bestows great
praise on his " benevolent landlord," for his kind-
ness and attention. j" We are afterwards informed
of the treatment of the slaves during the journey,
which, be it remembered, was performed under the
direction of this " worthy, good, and benevolent
negro." It appears that " The slaves are commonly
secured by putting the right leg of one and the left
of another into the same pair of fetters. By sup-
porting the fetters with a string, they can walk, though
very slowly. Every four slaves are likewise fastened
together by the neck, with a strong pair of twisted
thongs ; and in the night an additional pair of fetters
* Park's Travels, vol. i. pp. 438, 290.
t Ibid., vol. i. p. 383, &c.
MORTALITY INCIDENT TO THE MARCH. 101
is put on their hands, and sometimes a light iron
chain passed around their necks."
CJ Such of them as evince marks of discontent are
secured in a different manner ; a thick billet of wood
is cut about three feet long, and, a smooth notch
being made upon one side of it, the ancle of the slave
is bolted to the smooth part by means of a strong iron
staple, one prong of which passes on each side of the
ancle. All these fetters and bolts are made from
native iron. In the present case they were put on by
the blacksmith, as soon as the slaves arrived from
Kancaba, and were not taken off until the morning
when the coflie departed for Gambia."
He goes on to say, " Even to those who accompa-
nied the caravan as a matter of choice, the toil was
immense ; and they travelled sometimes from morning
till night without tasting a morsel of food." And
afterwards, " During this day's travel, two slaves, a
woman and a girl, were so much fatigued that they
could not keep up with the coflie. They were severely
whipped and dragged along, until about three o'clock
in the afternoon, when they were both affected with
vomiting, by which it was discovered that they had
eaten clay." He then narrates a case of great
cruelty : one of the female slaves had become quite ex-
hausted, and every exertion was made with the whip
to cause her to keep up with the coffle. When every
effort failed, " the general cry of the coflie was kang-
tegi" (cut her throat). I had not walked forward a
mile, when one of Kaarfa's domestic slaves came up
to me with poor Nealee's garment upon the end of
102 THE SLAVE TRADE.
his bow, and exclaimed, ' Nealee is lost ;' he after-
wards said, he had left her on the road."* A few
days after this took place, a party of Serawoole traders
joined the conie, and one of their male slaves became
also completely exhausted ; he was whipped and
tortured to no purpose, and then left in charge of
another slave, who, it was generally believed, put
him to death.
It appears that there is also great suffering when
these poor victims are conveyed to the coast, by the
rivers. Falconbridge says, " While I was on the
coast, during one of the voyages I made, the black
traders brought down in different canoes from 1'200
to 1500 negroes, which had been purchased at one
fair." They consisted of all ages. Women some-
times form a part of them, who happen to be so far
advanced in their pregnancy, as to be delivered
during their journey from the fairs to the coast.
And there is not the least room to doubt, but that,
even before they can reach the fairs, great numbers
perish from cruel usage, want of food, travelling
through inhospitable deserts, &c. They are brought
in canoes, at the bottom of which they lie, having
their hands tied, and a strict watch being kept over
them. Their usage, in other respects, during the
passage, is equally cruel. Their allowance of food
is so scanty as barely to support nature. They are,
besides, much exposed to the violent rains which fre-
quently fall here, being covered only with mats that
afford but a slight defence; and, as there is usually
* Park's Travels, vol. i. p. 507, &c.
water at the bottom of the canoes from leaking, they
are scarcely ever dry."*
Here, again, it may be rejoined, " But these were
the practices of the last century." Riley informs us
that Sidi Hamet, the Moor, narrated to him, as an
instance of the sufferings consequent on the route by
the Desert, that the caravan which he accompanied
from Wednoon to Timbuctoo, in 1807, consisted, on
its setting out, of 1000 men and 4000 camels ; but
only twelve camels and twenty-one men escaped alive
from the Desert. f Let us examine whether these
cruel sufferings have been mitigated in our own
times ; and whether we may flatter ourselves that
Africa is no longer the scene of such atrocities.
Burckhardt, in 1814, accompanied a caravan from
Shendy in Nubia, across the Desert, to Suakin on the
Red Sea. There were slaves with the caravan on
their way to Arabia. In the middle of the journey
the caravan was alarmed by a threatened attack of
robbers ; they " moved on," we are told, " in silence ;
nothing; was heard but the groans of a few infirm
female slaves, and the whips of their cruel masters. ";j:
He also says that the females are almost universally
the victims of the brutal lusts of their drivers.
Major Gray, while travelling in the country of
Galam in 18*21, fell in with a part of the Kaartan
* Falconbridge on the Slave Trade, London, 1188, pp. 12, 13,
19, &c.
t Riley's Narrative, p. 36 i.
J Burckhardt's Travels, pp. 381, 336.
104 THE SLAVE TRADE.
force, which he said had taken 107 prisoners, chiefly
women and children. " The men were tied in pairs
by the necks, their hands secured behind their backs ;
the women by their necks only, but their hands were
not left free from any sense of feeling for them, but
in order to enable them to balance the immense loads
of pang, corn, or rice, which they were forced to
carry on their heads, and the children (who were
unable to walk, or sit on horseback) behind their
backs. They were hurried along at a pace little
short of running, to enable them to keep up with the
horsemen, who drove them on as Smithfield drovers
do fatigued bullocks. Many of the women were old,
and by no means able to endure such treatment."
On a subsequent day he says, " The sufferings of the
poor slaves during a march of nearly eight hours,
partly under an excessively hot sun and east wind,
heavily laden with water, of which they were allowed
to drink but very sparingly, and travelling barefoot
on a hard and broken soil, covered with long dried
reeds, and thorny underwood, may be more easily
conceived than described."
In the course of his journey Major Gray fell in
with another detachment of slaves, and he says,
" The women and children (all nearly naked, and
carrying heavy loads) were tied together by the neck,
and hurried along over a rough stony path, that cut
their feet in a dreadful manner. There were a
great number of children, who, from their tender
years, were unable to walk ; and were carried, some
MORTALITY INCIDENT TO THE MARCH. 105
on the prisoners' backs, and others on horseback be-
hind the captors, who, to prevent their falling off,
tied them to the back part of the saddle with a rope
made from the bark of the baoball, which was so
hard and rough that it cut the back and sides of the
poor little innocent babes, so as to draw the blood.
This, however, was only a secondary state of the suf-
ferings endured by those children, when compared
to the dreadfully blistered and chafed state of their
seats, from constant jolting on the bare back of the
horse, seldom going slower than a trot, or smart
amble, and not un frequently driven at full speed for
a few yards, and pulled up short."*
In speaking of the route by the Desert, Lyon
says :j — " Children are thrown with the baggage on
the camels,. if unable to walk ; but, if five or six years
of age, the poor little creatures are obliged to trot on
all day, even should no stop be made for fourteen or
fifteen hours, as I have sometimes witnessed." " The
daily allowance of food is a quart of dates in the
morning, and half a pint of flour, made into bazeen,
at night. Some masters never allow their slaves to
drink after a meal, except at a watering-place."
" None of the owners ever moved without their
whips, which were in constant use. Drinking too
much water, bringing too little wood, or falling
asleep before the cooking was finished, were con-
sidered nearly capital crimes ; and it was in vain for
* Gray's Travels in Africa, pp. 290, 295, and 323.
t Lyon, p. 297.
106 THE SLAVE TRADE.
these poor creatures to plead the excuse of being
tired, — nothing could avert the application of the
whip." " No slave dares to be ill or unable to walk ;
but, when the poor sufferer dies, the master suspects
there must have been something ' wrong inside,' and
regrets not having liberally applied the usual remedy
of burning the belly with a red-hot iron ; thus re-
conciling themselves to their cruel treatment of these
unfortunate wretches."
' This description is confirmed by Caillie, who, in
his account of his journey from Timbuctoo through
the Desert, gives the following case of barbarity,
which he says he had the misfortune to see too often
repeated : — " A poor Bambara slave, of twenty-five
years, was cruelly treated by some Moors, who com-
pelled him to walk, without allowing him to halt for
a moment, or to quench his burning thirst. The
complaints of this unfortunate creature might have
moved the hardest heart. Sometimes lie would beg
to rest himself against the crupper of a camel, and at
others he threw himself down on the sand in despair.
In vain did he implore, with uplifted hands, a drop of
water : his cruel masters answered his prayers and
his tears only with stripes." *
In another part of his work Caillie says : —
" Our situation was still the same ; the east wind
blew with violence ; and, far from affording us any
refreshment, it only threatened to bury us under the
mountains of sand which it raised ; and, what was still
* Caillie's Travels, vol. ii. p. 89.
MORTALITY INCIDENT TO THE MARCH. 107
more alarming, our water diminished rapidly from
the extreme drought which it occasioned. Nobody
suffered more intensely from thirst than the poor
little slaves, who were crying for water. Exhausted
by their sufferings and their lamentations, these un-
happy creatures fell on the ground, and seemed to
have no power to rise ; hut the Moors did not suffer
them to continue there lono- when travelling. In-
sensible to the sufferings which childhood is so little
fitted to support, these barbarians dragged them
along with violence, beating them incessantly till
they had overtaken the camels, which were already
at a distance."*
In 1824 Denham and Clapperton penetrated to
Nigritia, by the Desert from Fezzan, the route usually
taken by slave-caravans going to the north of Africa.
In narrating his excursion to Munga, Major Denham
speaks of a caravan which he met at Kouka, consist-
ing of ten merchants from Soudan, with nearly 100
slaves; and he observes, "If the hundreds, nay thou-
sands, of skeletons that whiten in the blast between
this place and Mourzouk, did not of themselves tell
a tale replete with woe^ the difference of appearance
in all slaves here, where they are fed tolerably, and
the state in which they usually arrive in Fezzan,
would but too clearly prove the acuteness of the
sufferings which commence on their leaving the
negro country. Going, as they do, poor creatures,
nearly naked, the cold of Fezzan, in the winter sea-
* Caillie's Travels, vol. ii. p. 1 14.
I
108 THE SLAVE TRADE.
son, kills them by hundreds."* This fact, as to the
change of climate, is also noticed by Captain Lyon,
who, speaking of the passage across the mountains
of Fezzan, says, " Feb. 12th. Ther. 30° below 0°.—
Water freezes, and the poor negroes in great distress
from the cold."f
When the travellers arrived at the well of Meshroo,
Denham says : — " Round this spot were lying more
than 100 skeletons. Our camels did not come up
till dark, and we bivouacked in the midst of those
unearthed remains of the victims of persecution and
avarice, after a long day's journey of twenty-six miles,
in the course of which one of our party counted 107
of these skeletons." Shortly afterwards, he adds : —
" During the last two days we had passed on an
average from sixty to eighty or ninety skeletons each
day ; but the numbers that lay about the wells at El
Haramar were countless. "| Jackson informs us§
that, in 1805, "a caravan from Timbuctoo to Tafilet
was disappointed at not finding water at the usual
watering-place, and entirely perished : 2,000 persons
and 1,800 camels."
Dr. Holroyd, in the letter to me which I have
already quoted, in speaking of the "gazoua" in
Kordofan, says : — "These slave-hunts have produced
a great depopulation in the districts where they are
practised : there is not only a terrible waste of life
*. Denham, pp. 172, 280. t fy' 011 * P- 2es -
I Denham, p. 12.
§ Jackson's Travels in Africa, 1809, p. 239,
MORTALITY INCIDENT TO THE MARCH. 109
in the attempts to capture the negroes, but after they
are seized there is so much of ill-usage and brutality,
that I have been assured that no less than thirty per
cent, perish in the first ten days after their seizure."
This account is confirmed by Dr. Ruppell, who
says that " in Mehemet Ali's expedition, in 1820 and
1821, above 40,000 were torn from their country,
not a third of whom reached Egypt; and even of
those who did, a great part soon died off." He goes
on to state that, as they were apt to desert on their
passage from Kordofan or Shencly, through the
Desert, and return to Dongola, each of them was
branded by a hot iron on the arm, and a pole, nine
feet long, fastened to their necks. The escort was
obliged to deliver as many slaves as they had received,
or the ears of those who might die on the road.
" Many of the unhappy victims, who could be no
longer urged, by the whips of their drivers, to further
exertions on the inarch, had their ears cut off while
yet alive, and were then left to await the agonies of
the last moment in the Desert. I myself, in my
journey to Ambukol, in the year 1824, passed many
of the bodies of these miserable creatures, on whose
necks the dreadful poles were still fastened : the bar-
barous drivers had not relieved the wretches from
their fetters, even in the hour of death."*
Dr. Bowring says, — " In conversations which I
have had with the domestic slaves in the towns of
Egypt, they talk with the greatest horror of the suf-
* Ruppell's/Travels in^Abyssinia, vol. ii. pp. 25, 27.
i2
110 THE SLAVE TRADE.
ferings connected with their first experience of the
bitterness of slavery. And these are but the begin-
ning of sorrows. In the progress across the Desert,
many perish from thirst and from fatigue. I have
often heard their miseries described on their way,
from the poverty of the fellahs and insufficiency of
the caravans, which are often charged with an ex-
cessive number of slaves. An estimate being made
of the greatest number which it is possible to preserve
with the supply of water that remains, all the rest
are abandoned, and die of starvation in the sandy
wilderness.
" I will give you, from the mouth, and nearly in
the words, of a female slave at Cairo, her account of
the journey across the Desert to Siout. ' We had a
long, long journey, and we suffered very much. We
had not food enough to eat ; and sometimes we had
no drink at all, and our thirst was terrible. When
we stopped, almost dying for want of water, they
killed a camel s and gave us his blood to drink. But
the camels themselves could not o- e t on, and then
they were killed, and we had their flesh for meat and
their blood for water. Some of the people were too
weak to get on, and so they were left in the Desert
to die. The fellahs were some of them good people,
and when we were tired allowed us to ride upon the
camels ; but there ^\ T eL'e many who would never let the
negroes ride, but forced them always to walk, always
over the sand. But when we had been days without
water, many dropped down, and were left upon the
MORTALITY INCIDENT TO THE MARCH. Ill
sand ; so that, when we got to the end of our journey,
numbers of those that had been with us were with us
no longer.' "
Dr. Holroyd also states that u These unfortunate
individuals (those selected for the army) were marched
down to Kartoom, fourteen days' journey, completely
naked ; and, to add to their misery, a wooden stake
six or seven feet long, and forked at one extremity,
Avas attached to the neck of one, by means of a cross
bar retained in its position by stripes of bull's hide ;
to the other end of the stake an iron ring was
fastened, which encircled the throat of another of
these poor harmless creatures. They were then un-
mercifully driven to Kartoom, with scarcely anything
to eat on the way, and compelled to traverse a burn-
ing desert with a very sparing and scanty supply of
water. They were despatched in companies of fifties ;
and so great were their privations and fatigue on the
journey, that a letter arrived at Kordofan, addressed
to Mustapha Bey, from Khourshid Pasha, of Kartoom,
Governor General of Soudan, and which was read
during a visit I made to the divan of the former, in
which the latter stated, that of fifty slaves Avho left
Kordofan some days before, only thirty-five were
living on the arrival of the caravan at Kartoom.
Richard Lander, in his account of Captain Clap-
perton's last journey in 1826, in which he attended
that traveller, speaking of the state of the slaves whom
he saw on their journeys, observes : " In their toil-
some journeyings from one part of the country to
112 THE SLAVE TRADE.
another, it must be admitted that the captured slaves
undergo incredible hardships." He left Socatoo, with
a party of traders, and the " king of Jacoba," who
had fifty slaves, whom he was conducting (with heavy
loads on their heads) to his own country. Two days
afterwards Lander was informed that the whole of
these slaves were missing ; and, on search being made,
it was ascertained that they had all perished from
excessive fatigue and want of water"*
Mr. Oldfield, who accompanied Laird in the expe-
dition up the Niger in 1833, in giving a description
of Bocqua market, says : " Under the tmas and in the
enclosures are to be seen male and female slaves
from the age of five up to thirty. Some of these
children of misfortune, more intelligent than others,
are to be seen sitting pensive and melancholy, appa-
rently in deep thought, while their poor legs are
swelled from confinement in irons, or being closely
stowed at the bottom of a canoe ; and he adds, " It is
painful to contemplate the number of slaves annually
sold at this market, most of whom are forwarded to
the sea-side, "f
Many more extracts might have been taken from
the remarks of modern travellers on this branch of
the subject ; but enough has been adduced to prove
that the cruelties and consequent mortality arising
from the march after seizure have not decreased since
the time of Falconbridge and Park.
* Lander's Records, vol. i. p. 301 ; and vol. ii. p. 95.
t Laird and Oldfield, vol. i. p. 409.
MORTALITY INCIDENT TO DETENTION. 113
I shall only further add, on the authority of Dr.
Meyen, (a German who, a few years ago, published
an account of a Voyage round the World,) that
" M. Mendez, the author of a very learned treatise
on the causes of the great mortality of the Negro
Slaves, estimates the number of those who die,
merely on the journey from the interior to the coast,
at five-twelfths of the whole."*
Detention.
The next cause of mortality arises from the deten-
tion of the slaves on the coast before they are em-
barked, and this occurs, for the most part, when the
vessel for which they may be destined has not arrived,
or is not ready to sail, or may be in dread of capture
after sailing.
A gentleman resident at Senegal in 1818 stated
to his correspondent at Paris, that, " No one in the
town is ignorant that there are here 600 wretched
creatures shut up in the slave-yards, waiting for
embarkation. The delay which has occurred causing
a serious expense, they receive only what is sufficient
to keep them alive, and they are made to go out for
a short space of time, morning and evening, loaded
with irons."t
When Commodore Owen visited Benguela in
1825, he says, " We had here an opportunity of see-
ing bond-slaves of both sexes chained together in
* Dr. Meyen, German edition, vol. i. p. 77.
t 13th Report of the African Institution, Ap. G. p. 99.
114 THE SLAVE TRADE.
pairs. About 100 of these unhappy beings had just
arrived from a great distance in the interior. Many-
were mere skeletons labouring under every misery
that want and fatigue could produce. In some, the
fetters had, by their constant action, worn through
the lacerated flesh to the bare bone, the ulcerated
wound having become the resort of myriads of flies,
which had deposited their eggs in the gangrenous
cavities/'*
Oiseau, commanding the brig Le Louis, on com-
pleting his cargo of slaves at the Old Calebar, thrust
the whole of the unfortunate beings between decks,
a height of nearly three feet, and closed the hatches
for the night. When morning made its appearance,
fifty of the poor sufferers had paid the debt of nature.
The wretch coolly ordered the bodies of his victims
to be thrown into the river, and immediately pro-
ceeded on shore to complete his execrable cargo. t
Richard Lander tells us that the Brazen, in which
he went to Africa in 1825, captured a Spanish bri-
gantine which was waiting off Accra, for a cargo of
slaves. A few days after this capture, the com-
mander of the Brazen landed at Papoe, and de-
manded the slaves which were to have been embarked
in the brigantine. They were ultimately given up,
and Lander says, " The slaves at length made their
appearance, and exhibited a long line of melancholy
faces and emaciated frames, wasted by disease and
close confinement, and by their having suffered dread-
k * Owen, vol, ii. p. 234. f Class B, 1825, p. 123.
MORTALITY INCIDENT TO DETENTION. 115
fully from scantiness of food, and the impure air of
their prison-house. They were in a complete state
of nudity, and heavily manacled ; several of them
were lamed by the weight of their irons, and their
skin sadly excoriated from the same cause."*
At the close of this journey, Lander says : — " I
saw 400 slaves at Badagry in the Bight of Benin,
crammed into a small schooner of eighty tons. The
appearance of these unhappy human beings was
squalid and miserable in the extreme ; they were
fastened by the neck in pairs, only one- fourth of a
yard of chain being allowed for each, and driven to
the beach by a parcel of hired scoundrels, whilst their
associates in cruelty were in front of the party pulling
them along by a narrow band, their only apparel,
which encircled the waist." " Badagry being a ge-
neral mart for the sale of slaves to European mer-
chants, it not nnfrequently happens that the market
is either overstocked with human beings, or no buyers
are to be found ; in which case the maintenance of
the unhappy slaves devolves solely on the Govern-
ment. The king then causes an examination to be
made, when the sickly, as well as the old and infirm,
are carefully selected and chained by themselves in
one of the factories (five of which, containing up-
wards of one thousand slaves of both sexes, were at
Badagry during my residence there) ; and next day
the majority of these poor wretches are pinioned
* Lander's Records, vol. i. p. 31.
116 THE SLAVE TRADE.
and conveyed to the banks of the river, where
having arrived, a weight of some sort is appended
to their necks, and, being rowed in canoes to the
middle of the stream, they are flung into the water,
and left to perish by the pitiless Badagrians. Slaves
who for other reasons are rejected by the merchants
undergo the same punishment, or are left to endure
more lively torture at the sacrifices, by which means
hundreds of human beings are annually destroyed."*
Mr. Leonard informs us, " that about 1830 the
king of Loango told the officers of the Primrose that
he could load eight slave-vessels in one week, and
give each 400 or 500 ; but that, having now no means
of disposing of the greater part of his prisoners, he
was obliged to kill them. And, shortly before the
Primrose arrived, a great number of unfortunate
wretches, who had been taken in a predatory incur-
sion, after having been made use of to carry loads
of the plundered ivory, &c, to the coast, on their
arrival there, as there was no market for them, and
as the trouble and expense of their support would
be considerable, were taken to the side of a hill,
a little beyond the town, and coolly knocked on the
head."t
In 1833 Mr. Oldfield found several dozen human
skulls lining the bank of the river Nunn, (one of the
mouths of the Niger,) at a barracoon or slave-house,
* Lander's Records, vol. ii. pp. 241, 250.
t Leonard's Voyage to Western Africa, p. 147.
MORTALITY INCIDENT TO DETENTION. 117
which he discovered were the remains of slaves who
had died there*
An intelligent master of a merchant-vessel, who,
for many years past, has been engaged in the African
trade, informs me that, after the slave- dealing cap-
tains have made their selection of the slaves brought
on board for sale, the unfortunate creatures who may
be rejected "are sent immediately on shore, and
marched down to the barracoon, chained together, a
distance of five miles. I have seen the most piteous
entreaties made by the poor rejected creatures to the
captain to take them, for they knew that to be re-
turned on shore was only to encounter a worse fate
by starvation." He is speaking of the River Bonny,
and he goes on to say, " Ju Ju town contains about
twelve hiftiTacooris : they are built to contain from 300
to 700 slaves each. I have seen from 1500 to 2000
slaves at a time, belonging to the several vessels then
in the river."
" I have known disease to make dreadful havoc
in these places, more especially in the year 1831,
when the small-pox carried off 200 in one barracoon.
Great numbers are carried off annually by diarrhoea
and other diseases."
Colonel Nicolls has stated to me, that during his
residence at Fernando Po he visited the River Came-
roons, where he saw a number of slaves in a barracoon ;
" they were confined in irons two and two, and many
* Laird and Oldfield's Journal, vol. i. p. 339.
118 THE SLAVE TRADE.
of them bad the irons literally grating against their
hones through the raw flesh."
It is stated by a naval officer serving in the
Preventive Squadron, in a letter to a relative, dated
about a year ago, and communicated to me, that in
1837, having been employed in blockading a Portu-
guese brig up one of the rivers in the Bight of Biafra,
" On arriving at my station, I had positive informa-
tion that the Portuguese had bought upwards of 400
slaves, and was about to sail. By some means or
other she got information that a British boat was
blockading her, consequently she postponed her
sailing for several weeks. Shortly afterwards, on
my inquiring into her state, I found 300 of her
slaves had died, chiefly of starvation, and a few were
shot by the Portuguese whilst attempting to^escape.
A few days afterwards the brig sailed without any
slaves, all, with the exception of about a score, having
fallen victims to the system pursued."
Captain Cook has informed me that he saw many
blind negroes in Quilimane (1837), who subsisted
by begging ; they were the remains, he was informed,
of a cargo landed from a Monte Videan vessel, which
had been attacked by ophthalmia. If they lived, they
were left to starve.
He also says that, in September, 1837, a number
of slaves were suffocated on board the brig Generous
at Quilimane. " The boatswain had, it appeared,
shut the hatches close down after the slaves had been
put below in the evening ; it was his duty to have
MORTALITY INCIDENT TO DETENTION. 119
kept the hatch uncovered, and to have placed guards
over them ; but this would have required his own
vigilance, and he considered a sound sleep was to him
worth all the slaves on board, especially as they cost
him nothing." This case came to Captain Cook's
knowledge in consequence of a quarrel between the
captain and the boatswain. " The pecuniary loss
was all that was regretted by the captain."
Captain Cook adds, that slaves who " die on board,
in port, are never interred on shore, but are inva-
riably thrown overboard, when they sometimes float
backward and forward with the tide for a week,
should the sharks and alligators not devour them.
Should a corpse chance to be washed on shore at
the top of high-water, it is permitted to remain until
the vultures dispose of it." " I have known one to
be near the Custom-house upwards of a week, during
which time the stench was intolerable."
In a letter addressed by Captain Cook to the
editor of the Standard, dated 16th July, 1838, he
says that instances have been known of slaves having
been buried alive in Quilimane for some trifling
offence, and that the consequent punishment (if there
was any at all) was a mere trifle, as imprisonment for
a month ; and he adds, —
" The fact, however, which I am now about to
state occurred in August, 1837, and came under my
own observation, and to all of which I am ready to
bear testimony on oath, if required. Slaves to the
number of 250, or thereabouts, male and female,
120 THE SLAVE TRADE.
adults and children, were brought in canoes from
Senna, a Portuguese settlement at some distance in
the interior of Africa, to be sold at Quilimane, there
being at that time several slavers lying in the river.
These unfortunate beings were consigned to a
person holding a high civil appointment under the
Portuguese Government (the collector of customs) :
these poor creatures were from a part of the country
where it is said that the natives make bad slaves ;
consequently, and as there was abundance of human
flesh in the market, they did not meet with a ready
sale. The wretch to whom they were consigned
actually refused them sustenance of any kind. Often
have I been compelled to witness the melancholy
spectacle of from twelve to twenty of my fellow-
creatures, without distinction of age or sex, chained
together, with a heavy iron chain round the neck,
wandering about the town in quest of food to satisfy
the cravings of nature, picking up bones and garbage
of every description from the dung-heaps, snails from
the fields, and frogs from the ditches, and, when the
tide receded, collecting the shell-fish that were left
on the bank of the river, or sitting round a fire roast-
ing and eagerly devouring the sea-weed.
" Again and again have I seen one or more of
these poor creatures, when unable from sickness to
walk, crawling on their hands and knees, accom-
panying the gang to which they were chained when
they went in search of their daily food .... for one
could not move without the whole. In consequence
MORTALITY INCIDENT TO DETENTION. 121
of this treatment, they soon became so emaciated
that the slave-dealers would not purchase them on
any terms ; in this state, horrid as it must appear,
the greater part were left to perish, without food,
medicine, or clothing, for the little piece of coarse
cotton cloth, worn by a few of the females, did not
deserve the name, and could answer no other purpose
than to lodge the vermin with which they were
covered ; their bones protruding through the skin,
they presented the appearance of living skeletons,
lingering amidst hunger and disease, till death, their
best friend, released most of them at once from suf-
fering and bondage."*
From these extracts it is evident that this branch
of the case furnishes an item of no small magnitude
in the black catalogue of negro destruction.
I now proceed to the
MIDDLE PASSAGE
* Through the haste with which the embarkation is usually
conducted, some of the boats are, it is said, frequently swamped
amidst the breakers, and many slaves are thus lost. — Col. Herald,
1st July, 1837.
122 THE SLAVE TRADE.
MIDDLE PASSAGE.
"' The stings of a wounded conscience, man cannot inflict ; but
nearly all which man can do to make his fellow- creatures miserable,
without defeating his purpose by putting a speedy end to their
existence, will still be here effected ; and it will still continue true,
that never can so much misery be found condensed into so small a
space as in a slave-ship during the middle passage.'' — I) ~i lb er -force,
Letter, ISO".
It was well observed by Mr. Fox, in a debate on
the Slave Trade, that " True humanity consists not
in a squeamish ear; it consists not in starting or
shrinking at such tales as these, but in a disposition
of heart to relieve miser}-. True humanity apper-
tains rather to the mind than to the nerves, and
prompts men to use real and active endeavours to
execute the actions which it suggests."
In the spirit of this observation, I now go on to
remark, that the first feature of this deadly passage,
which attracts our attention, is the evident insuih-
ciency, in point of tonnage, of the vessels employed,
for the cargoes of human beings which they are made
to contain.
In 17S8 a law passed the British legislature, by
which it was provided that vessels under 150 tons
should not carry more than rive men to every three
tons; that vessels above 150 tons should not carry
more than three men to every two tons ; and that the
height of slave-vessels between decks should not be
less than five feet. In 1813 it was decreed by the
MORTALITY INCIDENT TO MIDDLE PASSAGE. 123
government of Portugal and Brazil that two tons
should be allowed for every five men ; and the
Spanish fl Cedula," of 1817, adopted the same scale.
It is understood that the Spanish and Portuguese
ton bears the proportion of one and a half to the
British ton. The allowance in British transports is
three men to every two tons.
Men. Tons.
The lowest rate, then, allowed by the British
was . . . . . . 5 to 3
And by Spain, Portugal, and Brazil, it
should he . . . . 5 to 3
But for British soldiers the regulation is .3 to 2
and, although this allowance in the transport of troops
seems to be liberal, when compared with the space
afforded for slaves, even here complaints have often
been made of the insufficiency.
Let us, then, keep in view these rates of tonnage,
as we proceed to ascertain the accommodation which
has been, and is now, afforded to the negroes on the
middle passage ;* and here, at least, one reason will
be apparent for the increase of suffering and mor-
tality which has recently occurred, viz. that the
extent of accommodation, limited as it w r as, has been
greatly curtailed.
* I am informed that the slavers which have been brought to
this country and remeasured have been found to be of much less
tonnage than that stated in their papers : for instance, the
" Napoleon," said to be 71 tons, was found to be only 31. The
" William Allen," said to be 350 tons, was found to be only
1 34 tons.
K
124 THE SLAVE TRADE.
We have a faithful description of the miseries of
the middle passage, from the pen of an eye-witness,
Mr. Falconbridge. His account refers to a period
antecedent to 1790. He tells us that " The men ne-
groes, on being brought aboard ship, are immediately
fastened together two and two, by handcuffs on their
wrists, and by irons riveted on their legs .... They
are frequently stowed so close as to admit of no
other posture than lying on their sides. Neither will
the height between decks, unless directly under the
grating, permit them the indulgence of an erect pos-
ture, especially where there are platforms, which is
generally the case. These platforms are a kind of
shelf, about eight or nine feet in breadth, extending
from the side of the ship towards the centre. They
are placed nearly midway between the decks, at the
distance of two or three feet from each deck. Upon
these the negroes are stowed in the same manner as
they are on the deck underneath." After mention-
ing some other arrangements, he goes on to say, u It
often happens that those who are placed at a distance
from the buckets, in endeavouring to get to them,
tumble over their companions, in consequence of their
being shackled. These accidents, although unavoid-
able, are productive of continual quarrels, in which
some of them are always bruised. In this distressed
situation they desist from the attempt, and
this becomes a fresh source of broils and disturbances,
and tends to render the situation of- the poor captive
wretches still more uncomfortable.
MORTALITY INCIDENT TO MIDDLE PASSAGE. 125
" 111 favourable weather they are fed upon deck,
but in bad weather their food is given to them below.
Numberless quarrels take place among them during
their meals ; more especially when they are put upon
short allowance, which frequently happens. In that
case, the weak are obliged to be content with a very
scanty portion. Their allowance of water is about
half a pint each, at every meal.
il Upon the negroes refusing to take sustenance, I
have seen coals of fire, glowing hot, put on a shovel,
and placed so near their lips as to scorch and burn
them, and this has been accompanied with threats of
forcing them to swallow the coals, if they any longer
persisted in refusing to eat. These means have ge-
nerally the desired effect. I have also been credibly
informed that a certain captain in the Slave Trade
poured melted lead on such of the negroes as obsti-
nately refused their food." Falconbridge then tells
us that the negroes are sometimes compelled to
dance and to sing, and that, if any reluctance is ex-
hibited, the cat-o'-nine-tails is employed to enforce
obedience. He goes on to mention the unbounded li-
cence given to the officers and crew of the slavers, as
regards the women ; and, speaking of the officers, he
says, they '■ are sometimes guilty of such brutal ex-
cesses as disgrace human nature .... But, ' he con-
tinues, " the hardships and inconveniences suffered by
the negroes during the passage are scarcely to be enu-
merated or conceived. They are far more violently
k2
126 THE SLAVE TRADE.
affected by the sea-sickness than the Europeans. It
frequently terminates in death, especially among the
women. The exclusion of the fresh air is among the
most intolerable. Most ships have air-ports ; but,
whenever the sea is rough and the rain heavy, it be-
comes necessary to shut these and every other con-
veyance by which air is admitted. The fresh air
being thus excluded, the negroes' rooms very soon
grow intolerably hot. The confined air, rendered
noxious by the effluvia exhaled from their bodies,
and by being repeatedly breathed, soon produces
fevers and fluxes, which generally carry off great
numbers of them. During the voyages I made, I
was frequently a witness to the fatal effects of this
exclusion of the fresh air. I will give one instance,
as it serves to convey some idea, though a very faint
one,* of the state of these unhappy beings. Some
wet and blowing weather having occasioned the port-
holes to be shut, and the gratings to be covered, fluxes
* One circumstance has struck me very forcibly. I have re-
ceived communications, both by letter and in conversation, from
many naval officers who have boarded slave-ships, and I have
observed that, without an exception, they all make this observation :
— " No words can describe the horrors of the scene, or the suf-
ferings of the negroes." I have recently shown these pages to a
naval officer, now a captain in the service, who had long been
employed in the preventive squadron, requesting him to point out
any error into which I might have fallen. He replied, Ci Your
statement is true, as far as it goes ; but it is, after all, only a faint
picture of the reality."
MORTALITY INCIDENT TO MIDDLE PASSAGE. 127
and fevers among the negroes ensued. My profes-
sion requiring it, I frequently went down among them,
till at length their apartments became so extremely
hot as to be only sufFerable for a very short time.
But the excessive heat was not the only thing that
rendered their situation intolerable. The deck, that
is, the floor of their rooms, was so covered with the
blood and mucus which had proceeded from them in
consequence of the flux, that it resembled a slaughter-
house. It is not in the power of human imagination
to picture to itself a situation more dreadful or more
disgusting.
" Numbers of the slaves having fainted, they
were carried on deck, where several of them died ;
and the rest were with great difficulty restored. It
had nearly proved fatal to me also : the climate was
too warm to admit the wearing of any clothing but a
shirt, and that I had pulled off before I Avent down :
notwithstanding which, by only continuing among
them for about a quarter of an hour, I was so over-
come by the heat, stench, and foul air, that I had
nearly fainted ; and it was not without assistance
that I could get upon deck. The consequence was,
that I soon after fell sick of the same disorder, frorr
which I did not recover for several months. A
circumstance of this kind sometimes repeatedly
happens in the course of a voyage, and often to a
greater degree than what has just been described :
particularly when the slaves are much crowded,
which was not the case at that time, the ship having
128 THE SLA.VE TRADE.
more than 100 short of the number she was to
have taken in : yet, out of 380, 105 died on the pas-
sage, — a proportion seemingly very great, but by no
means uncommon."
He proceeds to notice the case of a Liverpool
vessel which took on board at the Bonny River
nearly 700 slaves (more than three to each ton !) ;
and Falconbridge says, — " By purchasing so great
a number, the slaves were so crowded, that they
were even obliged to lie one upon another. This
occasioned such a mortality among them, that, with-
out meeting with unusual bad weather, or having a
longer voyage than common, nearly one-half of them
died before the ship arrived in the West Indies."
He then describes the treatment of the sick as
follows : — " The place allotted for the sick negroes
is under the half-deck, where they lie on the bare
plank. By this means, those who are emaciated
frequently have their skin, and even their flesh, en-
tirely rubbed off, by the motion of the ship, from the
prominent parts of the shoulders, elbows, and hips,
so as to render the bones in those parts quite bare.
The excruciating pain which the poor sufferers feel
from being obliged to continue in so dreadful a situ-
ation, frequently for several weeks, in case they
happen to live so long, is not to be conceived or
described. Few indeed are ever able to withstand
the fatal effects of it. The surgeon, upon going
between decks in the morning, frequently finds se-
veral of the slaves dead, and, among the men, some-
MORTALITY INCIDENT TO MIDDLE PASSAGE. 129
times a dead and a living negro fastened by their
irons together."
He then states that surgeons are driven to engage
in the " Guinea Trade" by the confined state of their
finances ; and that, at most, the only way in which a
surgeon can render himself useful, is by seeing that
the food is properly cooked and distributed to the
slaves : " When once the fever and dysentery get to
any height at sea, a cure is scarcely ever effected."
" One-half, sometimes two-thirds, and even beyond
that, have been known to perish. Before we left
Bonny River no less than fifteen died of fevers, and
dysenteries, occasioned by their confinement."* Fal-
conbridge also told the Committee of 1790, that, " in
stowing the slaves, they wedge them in, so that they
had not as much room as a man in his coffin : that,
when going from one side of their rooms to the other,
he always took off his shoes, but could not avoid pinch-
ing them ; and that he had the marks on his feet
where they bit and scratched him. Their confinement
in this situation was so injurious, that he has known
them to go down apparently in good health at night,
and be found dead in the morning."
Any comment on the statement of Falconbridge
must be superfluous : he had been a surgeon in
slave-ships, he was a respectable witness before the
Committee of Inquiry in 1790, and gave the sub-
stance of this statement in evidence. And it ought
to be borne in mind that he was an eye-witness of
the scenes which he has described. His evidence
* Falconbridge, p. 19, &c.
130 THE SLAVE TRADE.
is the more valuable, when it is considered that we
have long been debarred from testimony equally cre-
dible and direct: as, since 1807, Britain has taken
no part in the slave-traffic ; and it has been the
policy of the foreign nations who have continued the
trade to conceal, as far as they could, the horrors and
miseries which are its attendants.
Mr. Granville Sharpe (the zealous advocate of
the negro) brought forward a case which aroused
public attention to the horrors of this passage. In
his Memoirs we have the following account taken
from his private memoranda : —
"■ March 19, 1783. Gustavus Vasa called on
me with an account of 132 negroes being thrown
alive into the sea, from on board an English slave-
ship.
" The circumstances of this case could not fail to
excite a deep interest. The master of a slave-ship
trading from Africa to Jamaica, and having 440 slaves
on board, had thought fit, on a pretext that he might
be distressed on his voyage for want of water, to
lessen the consumption of it in the vessel, by throw-
ing overboard 132 of the most sickly among the
slaves. On his return to England, the owners of the
ship claimed from the insurers the full value of those
drowned slaves, on the ground that there was an
absolute necessity for throwing them into the sea, in
order to save the remaining crew, and the ship itself.
The underwriters contested the existence of the al-
leged necessity; or, if it had existed, attributed it to the
ignorance and improper conduct of the master of the
MORTALITY INCIDENT TO MIDDLE FASSAGE. 131
vessel. This contest of pecuniary interest brought to
light a scene of horrid brutality which had been acted
during the execution of a detestable plot. From the
trial it appeared that the ship Zong, Luke Colling-
wood master, sailed from the island of St. Thomas,
on the coast of Africa, September 6, 1781, with 440
slaves and fourteen whites on board, for Jamaica,
and that in the November following she fell in with
that island ; but, instead of proceeding to some port,
the master, mistaking, as he alleges, Jamaica for
Hispaniola, ran her to leeward. Sickness and mor-
tality had by this time taken place on board the
crowded vessel : so that, between the time of leaving
the coast of Africa and the 29th of November, sixty
slaves and seven white people had died ; and a great
number of the surviving slaves were then sick and
not likely to live. On that clay the master of the
ship called together a few of the officers, and stated
to them that, if the sick slaves died a natural death,
the loss would fall on the owners of the ship ; but, if
they were thrown alive into the sea, on any sufficient
pretext of necessity for the safety of the ship, it
would be the loss of the underwriters, alleging, at
the same time, that it would be less cruel to throw
sick wretches into the sea, than to suffer them to
linger out a few days under the disorder with which
they were afflicted.
" To this inhuman proposal the mate, James Kel-
sal, at first objected ; but Collingwood at length pre-
vailed on the crew to listen to it. He then chose out
from the cargo 132 slaves, and brought them on deck,
132 THE SLAVE TRADE.
all or most of whom were sickly, and not likely to
recover, and lie ordered the crew by turns to throw
them into the sea. ' A parcel ' of them were accord-
ingly thrown overboard, and, on counting over the
remainder the next morning, it appeared that the
number so drowned had been fifty-four. He then
ordered another parcel to be thrown over, which, on a
second counting on the succeeding day, was proved to
have amounted to forty-two.
" On the third day the remaining thirty-six were
brought on deck, and, as these now resisted the cruel
purpose of their masters, the arms of twenty-six were
fettered with irons, and the savage crew proceeded
with the diabolical work, casting them down to join
their comrades of the former days. Outraged misery
could endure no longer ; the ten last victims sprang
disdainfully from the grasp of their tyrants, defied
their power, and, leaping into the sea, felt a moment-
ary triumph in the embrace of death." *
The evidence taken before the Parliamentary Com-
mittees of 1790 and 1791 abounds with similar cases
of enormity. I should be entitled, if it were neces-
sary, to quote every one of them, because the middle
passage, at that time, when the traffic was legal, was
less horrible than now, when it is contraband. But
I have limited myself to two extracts : the one,
because it is the narrative of a surgeon,!" a class of
* " Memoirs of Granville Sharpe," edited by Prince Hoare.
London, 1820, pp. 236—238.
t Captain Cook, from whose communication to me I have already
given extracts, narrating some of the cruelties of the middle pas-
MORTALITY INCIDENT TO MIDDLE PASSAGE. 133
officers now scarcely to be met with in a slave-ship,
and because it gives, in a brief and continuous narra-
tive, the chief features of the voyage across the
Atlantic : the other, because every fact was proved
in a court of justice.
Such Avere some of the cruelties'of the middle pas-
sage towards the end of the last century ; and it might
have been expected that, since that time, some im-
provement should have taken place ; but it is not so .
the treatment of slaves by the British, subsequent to
the Slave Regulation Act, and down to 1808, was
mildness itself, when compared with the miseries con-
sequent on the trade, and the system which has been
pursued in the vain attempt to put it down, since that
period to the present time.
Mr. Wilberforce, in his letter to his constituents
in 1807, observes, " Many of the sufferings of these
wretched beings are of a sort for which no legislative
regulations can provide a remedy. Several of them,
indeed, arise necessarily out of their peculiar circum-
stances, as connected with their condition on ship-
board. It is necessary to the safety of the vessel to
secure the men by chains and fetters. It is necessary
to confine them below during the night, and in very
stormy weather during the day also. Often it hap-
pens, that with the numbers still allowed to be taken,
especially when some of those epidemic diseases pre-
sage, says, " With all this probability, or rather certainty, of dis-
ease, I never knew but one slaver that carried a surgeon."
134 THE SLAVE TRADE.
vail, which, though less frequent than formerly, will
yet occasionally happen ; and when men of different
countries and languages, or of opposite tempers, are
linked together, that such scenes take place as are
too nauseous for description. Still in rough weather
their limbs must be excoriated by lying on the
boards ; still they will often be wounded by the
fetters ; still food and exercise will be deemed neces-
sary to present the animal in good condition at the
place of sale ; still some of them will loathe their
food, and be averse to exercise, from the joint effect
perhaps of sea-sickness and mental uneasiness ; and
still, while in this state, they will probably be charged
with sulkiness ; and eating and dancing in their fetters
will be enforced by stripes ; still the high netting
will be necessary, that standing precaution of an
African ship against acts of suicide ; but more than
all, still must the diseases of the mind remain entire,
nay, they may perhaps increase in force, from the
attention being less called off by the urgency of
bodily suffering ; the anguish of husbands torn from
their wives, — wives from their husbands, and parents
from their children ; the pangs arising from the con-
sideration that they are separated for ever from their
country, their friends, their relations, and connexions,
remain the same."*
Such is the statement of Wilberforce as to the
middle passage in its mildest form. This truly great
* Wilherforce's Letter, p. 99, &c.
MORTALITY INCIDENT TO MIDDLE PASSAGE. 135
man had the satisfaction shortly afterwards to witness
the abolition of the traffic on the part of Britain, — a
triumph on the side of humanity which his unceasing
and strenuous efforts were mainly instrumental in
obtaining.
Since 1808 the English Government has, with
various success, been indefatigably engaged in en-
deavouring to procure the co-operation of foreign
powers for the suppression of the Slave Trade. In
virtue of the treaties which have been entered into,
many vessels engaged in the traffic have been cap-
tured ; and much information has been obtained,
which has been regularly laid before Parliament. A
few of the cases which have been detailed will now
be noticed, for the purpose of ascertaining whether
the miseries which have been narrated have ceased to
exist ; or whether they do not now exist in a more
intense degree than at any former period.
The first case I notice is that of the Spanish brig
Carlos, captured in 1814. In this vessel of 200
tons, 512 negroes had been put on board (nearly
180 more than the complement allowed on the pro-
portion of five slaves to three tons). The captor
reported that " they were so miserably fed, clothed,
&c, that any idea of the horrors of the Slave Trade
would fall short of what I saw. Eighty were thrown
overboard before we captured her. In many in-
stances I saw the bones coming through the skin
from starvation."*
In the same year (1814) the schooner Aglae, of
* African Institution Report, 1815, p. 17.
136 THE SLAVE TRADE.
40 tons, was captured with a cargo of 152 negroes
(nearly four to each ton). "The only care seemed
to have been to pack them as close as possible, and
tarpaulin was placed over tarpaulin, in order to give
the vessel the appearance of being laden with a well-
stowed cargo of cotton and rice."*
In 1815 a lieutenant of the navy thus describes
the state of a Portuguese slaver, the St. Joaquim: he
says, "That within twenty- two days after the vessel
had left Mozambique thirteen of the slaves had died :
that between the capture and their arrival at Simon's
Bay, the survivors of them were all sickly and weak,
and ninety- two of them afflicted with the flux ; that
the slaves were all stowed together, perfectly naked,
and nothing but rough, unplaned planks to crouch
down upon, in a hold situated over their water and
provisions, the place being little more than two feet
in height, and the space allowed for each slave so
small, that it was impossible for them to avoid touch-
ing and pressing upon those immediately surround-
ing. The greater part of them were fastened, some
three together, by one leg, each in heavy iron shackles,
a very large proportion of them having the flux.
Thus they were compelled/" &c. (here a scene of
disgusting wretchedness is described.) " The pilot
being asked by Captain Baker how many he sup-
posed would have reached their destination, replied,
1 About half the number that were embarked.' " f
We have next the case of the Rodeur, as stated in
* African Inst. Report, Appendix, p. 86.
t Afr. Inst. Report, 1818, p. 27.
MORTALITY INCIDENT TO MIDDLE PASSAGE. 137
a periodical work, devoted to medical subjects, and
published at Paris. This vessel, it appears, was of
200 tons burden. She took on board a cargo of
160 negroes, and after having been fifteen days on
her voyage, it was remarked that the slaves had con-
tracted a considerable redness of the eyes, which
spread with singular rapidity. At this time they
were limited to eight ounces of water a-day for each
person, which quantity was afterwards reduced to
the half of a wine-glass. By the advice of the sur-
geon, the slaves who were in the hold were brought
upon deck for the advantage of fresh air ; but it
became necessary to abandon this expedient, as many
of them who were affected with nostalgia threw them-
selves into the sea, locked in each other's arms. The
ophthalmia, which had spread so rapidly and fright-
fully among the Africans, soon began to infect all
on board, and to create alarm for the crew. The
danger of infection, and perhaps the cause which
produced the disease, were increased by a violent
dysentery, attributed to the use of rain-water. The
number of the blind augmented every day. The
vessel reached Guadaloupe on June 21, 1819, her
crew being in a most deplorable condition. Three
days after her arrival, the only man who during the
voyage had withstood the influence of the contagion,
and whom Providence appeared to have preserved
as a guide to his unfortunate companions, was seized
with the same malady. Of the negroes, thirty-nine
had become perfectly blind, twelve had lost one
138 THE SLAVE TRADE.
eye, and fourteen were affected with blemishes more
or less considerable.
This case excited great interest, and several addi-
tional circumstances connected with it were given
to the public. It was stated that the captain caused
several of the negroes who were prevented in the
attempt to throw themselves overboard, to be shot
and hung, in the hope that the example might deter
the rest from a similar conduct. It is further stated,
that upwards of thirty of the slaves who became blind
were thrown into the sea and drowned ; upon the
principle that had they been landed at Guadaloupe,
no one would have bought them, while by throwing
them overboard the expense of maintaining them
was avoided, and a ground was laid for a claim on
the underwriters by whom the cargo had been in-
sured, who are said to have allowed the claim, and
made good the value of the slaves thus destroyed.
What more need be said in illustration of the ex-
tremity of suffering induced by the middle passage,
as demonstrated by the case of the Rocleur ? But
the supplement must not be omitted. At the time
when only one man could see to steer that vessel,
a large ship approached, " which appeared to be
totally at the mercy of the wind and the waves.
The crew of this vessel, hearing the voices of the
crew of the Rodeur, cried out most vehemently for
help. They told the melancholy tale as they passed
along, — that their ship was a Spanish slave-ship, the
St. Leon ; and that a contagion had seized the eyes
MORTALITY INCIDENT TO MIDDLE PASSAGE. 139
of all on board, so that there was not one indi-
vidual sailor or slave who could see. But alas ! this
pitiable narrative was in vain ; for no help could be
given. The St. Leon passed on, and was never
more heard of!"*
In the African Institution Report for 1820, I find
the following case stated. Captain Kelly, of H.M.S.
Pheasant, captured on July 30, 1819, a Portu-
guese schooner, called the Nova Felicidade, belong-
ing to Prince's Island, having on board seventy-one
slaves, and a crew, consisting of one master and ten
sailors. This vessel measured only eleven tons. She
was carried by Captain Kelly to Sierra Leone for
adjudication, and his judicial declaration contains the
following statement : —
" I do further declare, that the state in which
these unfortunate creatures were found is shocking
to every principle of humanity ; — seventeen men
shackled together in pairs by the legs, and twenty
boys, one on the other, in the main hold, — a space
measuring eighteen feet in length, seven feet eight
inches main breadth, and one foot eight inches in
height ; and under them the yams for their sup-
port."
The appearance of the slaves, when released from
their irons, was most distressing ; scarcely any of
them could stand on their legs, from cramp and
evident starvation. The space allowed for the
females, thirty- four in number, was even more con-
* Afr. Inst. Report, 1820, p. 7.
L
140 THE SLAVE TRADE.
tracted than that for the men, measuring only nine
feet four inches in length, four feet eight inches
main breadth, and two feet seven inches in height,
but not being confined in irons, and perhaps al-
lowed during the day to come on deck, they did
not present so distressing an appearance as the
men."*
We have next another instance of the varied
cruelties of this part of the subject — La Jeune
Estelle, captured by Admiral Collier in 1820, after
a chase of some hours, during which several casks
were observed to be floating in the sea ; but no
person could be spared at the time to examine them.
On boarding the Estelle, the captain denied that he
had any slaves on board ; but from the very sus-
picious appearances around, the officer ordered a
strict search to be made. An English sailor, on
striking a cask, heard a faint voice issue from it, as
if of some creature expiring. The cask was imme-
diately opened, when two slave girls, about twelve
or fourteen years of age, were found packed up in it ;t
* Afr. Inst. Report, 1820, p. 11.
t I have great satisfaction in being able to trace the sequel to
this tale of horror. Mr. Kilham thus writes in 1824 : " The
wives of the missionaries find no insurmountable difficulty in
teaching the African girls to be clever cooks, housemaids, and
laundresses. I had the gratification last week to see one of the
poor girls who was rescued from the iron-hearted slave-dealer,
who had confined his two remaining victims in a cask on board.
One of the girls is now married:' the other is chief monitor in the
Church Missionary School at Leopold."
MORTALITY INCIDENT TO MIDDLE PASSAGE. 141
a prisoner on board the captor's ship recognized the
girls as two out of fourteen, whom the slaver had
carried off from a village on the coast. Admiral
Collier, on this, ordered another search to be made,
in hopes of discovering the other twelve ; but they
were nowhere to be found. The painful suspicion
then arose that the slaver had packed up the twelve
girls in casks, and had thrown them overboard
during the chase ; but it was too late to ascertain the
truth of this conjecture, as the chase had led the
English frigate many leagues to leeward of the
place where they had observed casks floating in the
sea.*
Some of the following extracts are also taken from
the Reports of the African Institution :—
A Spanish schooner, the Vicua, when taken pos-
session of, in 1822, had a lighted match hanging
over the open magazine hatch. The match had been
placed there by the crew before they escaped. It
was seen by one of the British seamen, who boldly
put his hat under the burning wick, and removed it.
The magazine contained a large quantity of powder.
One spark would have blown up 325 unfortunate
victims, lying in irons in the hold. These monsters
in iniquity expressed their deep regret, after the
action, that their diabolical plan had failed. Thumb-
screws were also found in this vessel. From con-
finement and suffering the slaves often injured
themselves by beating, and venting their grief upon
* Afr. Inst. Report, 1821, p. 15.
L2
142 THE SLAVE TRADE.
such as were next them, by biting and tearing their
flesh.*
Les Deux Sceurs was a vessel of forty-one tons ;
the Eleanor of about sixty ; the first had crammed
132 negroes, the last 1 35, into a space capable of con-
taining about thirty, at full length. |
In the Report of 1823, we have an account of a
gallant feat achieved by the boats of a man-of-war,
commanded by Lieutenant Mildmay, on the 15th of
April, 1822. The action took place in the river
Bonny. On the one side were six sail of slavers,
three of which opened a heavy fire upon " the English
boats as they advanced. When the latter were near
enough for their shots to take effect, the firing was
returned. They advanced, and in a short time took
possession of all the vessels.
" Many of the slaves jumped overboard during the
engagement, and were devoured by the sharks. On
board the Yeanam the slaves suffered much ; four
were killed, and ten wounded. Of the wounded,
three were females ; one girl, of about ten years old,
lost both her legs, another her right arm, and a third
was shot in the side. Even after the vessel had been
surrendered, a number of the Spanish sailors skulked
below, and, arming the slaves with muskets, made
them fire upwards on the British. On board this
ship Lieutenant Mildmay observed a slave girl, about
twelve or thirteen years of age, in irons, to which
* Afr. Inst. Report, 1823, p. 29.
I lb., 1826, p. 55.
MORTALITY INCIDENT TO MIDDLE PASSAGE. 143
was fastened a thick iron chain, ten feet in length,
that was dragged along as she moved."*
Commodore Sullen writes, of date September 5,
1825, that the Brazen, last October, overtook
L'Eclair. " She belongs to Nantz. The master
stated that he had lost a third of his cargo in embark-
ing them. She measured three feet one inch between
decks ; the men chained ; many of them unable to
sit upright."-]"
A resident at Freetown thus writes in the Sierra
Leone Gazette of the 11th of December, 1823 : —
" Having gone off to the slave-vessels lately sent into
this harbour, I was struck by the appearance of some
very fierce dogs, of the bloodhound species, natives
of Brazil ; and, on inquiry, found that they had been
taken on board for the purpose of assisting their in-
human masters in coercing the unfortunate victims
of their lawless cupidity. They had been trained, it
appears, to sit watch over the hatches during the
night, or whenever the wretched beings were con-
fined below, and thus effectually precluded them from
coming up. This abominable system is, I under-
stand, pretty generally practised on board the slavers
from Bahia and Cuba."
In the Sierra Leone Advertiser of November 20,
1824, we have some striking instances of the frauds
practised by the Portuguese slavers in carrying on
their trade. Of three vessels captured, it appeared
that the Diana had a royal licence to carry 300
* Afr. Inst. Report, 1823, p. 28. f lb., 1826, p. 60.
144 THE SLAVE TRADE.
slaves, as being a vessel of 120 tons ; and this in
accordance with the law allowing five slaves to every
two tons (equal to three tons British) ; but in fact
she admeasured only sixty-six tons, which would give
a rate of five slaves to one ton. She had shipped at
Badagry, for Brazil, 156 slaves, besides her crew,
eighteen in number.
The Two Brazilian Friends, licensed to carry 365
slaves, as being of 146 tons, proved to be of only 95
tons ; and the platform for the men only two feet six
inches in height : yet she had on board 260 slaves,
besides a crew of eighteen persons.
The Aviso, asserted to be 231, found to be only
165 tons : 465 slaves were stowed in this vessel,
with a crew thirty-three in number.
A great many deaths had occurred in these vessels,
and the survivors were in a very emaciated state*
* " ' Of all the vessels I was on board of,' says Captain Wool-
combe, * this (the Diana) was in the most deplorable condition ;
the stench from the accumulation of dirt, joined to that of so many
human beings packed together in a small space (the men all ironed
in pairs) was intolerable. To add to the scene of misery, the
small-pox had broken out among them.'
" Commodore Bullen, who visited the Two Brazilian Friends,
says, ' Its filthy and horrid state beggars all description. Many
females were far advanced in pregnancy, and several had infants
from four to twelve ^months of age ; all were crowded together in
one mass of living corruption ; and yet this vessel had not her
prescribed complement by near 100.'
" Commodore Bullen found the Aviso in a most crowded and
wretched condition, although she had on board 120 less than
directed in her passport. Such were the filth and crowd, that not
MORTALITY INCIDENT TO MIDDLE PASSAGE. 145
The Paris petition of — February, 1825, states,
" That it is established, by authentic documents, that
the slave captains throw into the sea, every year,
about 3000 negroes, men, women, and children ; of
whom more than half are thus sacrificed, whilst yet
alive, either to escape from the visits of cruisers, or
because, worn down by their sufferings, they could
not be sold to advantage."*
In the Appendix (G.) to the Report of the African
Institution for 1827, we have the case of the schooner
L'Espoir, as narrated by General Milius, governor of
Bourbon. "In the month of September, 1826, the
schooner left the Mauritius under English colours,
shaping its course towards the coasts of Madagascar.
The Sieur Lemoine was the master ; he fell in with
a Portuguese vessel laden with negroes and gold-
dust. An eagerness and thirst of gain seized upon
his soul ; he ran alongside of the Portuguese vessel,
and immediately killed the mate by a musket-shot ;
having boarded her, he soon obtained possession of
the vessel attacked, and his first questions were ad-
dressed to a Portuguese colonel, aged fifty, of whom
he inquired where the money and gold-dust were
one-half could have reached the Brazils alive. At the date of her
capture she had scarcely 20 days' provisions for the slaves, and less
water. c How they intended to subsist them till their arrival at
Bahia,' says the Captain, ' is to me a problem, unless they could
have calculated on a great decrease from death.'" — Afr. Inst.
Report for 1825, pp. 27, 28.
* Afr. Inst. Report for 1826, pp. 62, 63.
146 THE SLAVE TRADE.
deposited. After this short interrogatory, Lemoine
purposely stepped aside, and a man named Reineur,
who was behind him, with a pistol blew out the un-
fortunate colonel's brains. The master of the cap-
tured vessel, alarmed by the rapid succession of these
massacres, threw himself overboard, in order to escape
a more immediate death. Vain hope ! the fury of
Lemoine and his accomplices was not yet allayed.
They pursued him in a boat, and having soon over-
taken him, they cut him on the head with a sabre.
The unfortunate man, feeling himself wounded,
caught hold, in order to support himself, of the boat
in which his murderers were, who, profiting by this
last effort of despair, had the dastard cruelty to run a
sword into his throat, the point of which came out at
his side : the body disappeared, and they returned on
board, fatigued but not satiated with murder. They
shut up in the hold the remaining Portuguese sailors,
and, after taking off the rich cargo, they scuttled
the ship, and sunk her with the crew they had thus
shut up.
" This is one of many proofs of the piratical habits
and cruelty produced by the Slave Trade."*
In the evidence before the committee on Sierra
Leone, &c, in 1830, we find it stated by Lieutenant
Tringham, that, about 1825, the vessel in which he
sailed captured a slave- schooner of seventy or eighty
tons, bound for Brazil, with 280 slaves on board.
There were about 100 on deck and 180 below. They
* Afr. Inst. Report, 1627. App. G., p. 144.
MORTALITY INCIDENT TO MIDDLE PASSAGE. 147
were so crowded on deck, that (as the witness says)
" We were not able to work the vessel without tread-
ing on them." As to their provisions, he remarked
that the " jerked beef" was very salt, and that there
was always a scarcity of water ; " the allowance was
about a pint a- day ; they had two meals in the day,
and about half a pint at each meal was their full
allowance."*
In the despatches of Sir Charles M'Carthy, dated
the 3rd of August, 1822, I find the case of the San
Jose Hallaxa, a schooner under seven tons burden,
which was captured by H.M.B. Thistle, in the river
Calabar ; and it appears, by the acknowledgment of
the master, that he shipped at Duke Ephraim's Town,
on that river, thirty slaves ; that he had gone to sea
with that number on board, intending to proceed to
Princes Island, but, not having been able to make
that port, he had returned to Calabar, having his
provisions and water nearly expended, after having
been at sea five or six weeks.
During this voyage, ten unfortunate objects of his
avarice, not being able to procure sufficient nourish-
ment to satisfy the cravings of nature, had been re-
leased from further sufferings by starvation ! One
poor female, in the absence of food, had existed on
salt water until her faculties were destroyed, and she
became raving mad ; but even the deplorable and
affecting state of insanity did not shield her from the
* Pari. Report. Sierra Leone, &c., 1830,'p. 33.
148 THE SLAVE TRADE.
brutal outrage of her oppressors, who, with a view
of stifling her cries by frequent repetitions of the lash,
literally flogged her to death. The owner of this
vessel, and the purchaser of these human beingSj is
a woman ! — Dona Maria de Cruz, daughter of the
notorious Gomez, formerly governor of Princes Island,
and now holding the appointment of fiscal, and mem-
ber of council. This woman is known to the Mixed
Commission Court, having been under their cogni-
zance some time since as proprietor of the ' Concei-
cao,' condemned by the British and Portuguese
judges.*
Sir John Barrow, in his able observations on the
Slave Trade in 1826, says: — "We have -also dis-
covered among the papers before us (those laid be-
fore Parliament), that the amiable Donna Maria de
Cruz, daughter of the governor of Princes Island, of
whom we had occasion once before to make honour-
able mention, is still engaged in carrying on the
traffic, though in a small way. The Victor sloop-
of-war fell in with and captured a schooner-boat be-
longing to this paragon of her sex, called the Maria
Pequena. \ Her burden was five tons. She had taken
on board in the river Gaboon, besides her crew, water,
and provisions, twenty-three slaves, six of whom had
already died : they were stowed in a space between
the water-casks and the deck, of eighteen inches in
height ; and Lieutenant Scott reports that, when he
* Pari. Paper, 11th July, 1823, p. 9.
MORTALITY INCIDENT TO MIDDLE PASSAGE. 149
seized her, the remaining' negroes were in a state of
actual starvation."*
Commodore Bullen, in his despatch of 26th No-
vember, 1826, describing the capture of he Daniel,
says, " in consequence of the heavy rain which com-
menced shortly after I brought him to, the slaves
quarrelled among themselves regarding the right of
precedence of those below to get on deck for fresh
air, and those who had already the possession of it,
when, shocking to relate, 19 fell victims."! The Com-
missioners at Havana, in their despatch of the 28th
August, 1828, mention the case of the " Intrepido,"
which, out of a cargo of 343, lost 1 90 in her passage,
and 18 after capture, making a total of 208. They
attribute a certain portion of this mortality to two in-
surrections of the negroes on board, but principally
to the horrible confinement of so great a number on
board so small a vessel.^
" The Invincible had on board a cargo of 440 ne-
groes, a number, it seems, sixty-three short of her full
complement ; hut these so crowded together, that it
became absolutely impossible to separate the sick from
the healthy ; and dysentery, ophthalmia, and scurvy
breaking out among them, the provisions and water
being of the worst kind, and the filth and stench be-
yond all description, 186 of the number had perished
in less than sixty days."§
* Edinburgh Review, No. 44, 1826.
f Class A. 1829, p. 138. J Class A. 1829, p. 153.
§ Afr. Inst. Report, 1827, pp. 4, 5.
150 THE SLAVE TRADE.
The Maria, 133 Spanish tons burden, captured by
H.M.B. Plumper, 26th December, 1830, was found
to contain 545 persons, including the crew, — thus
allowing only the unprecedented small space of one
ton for the accommodation of four persons ; the con-
sequence was, that though she was out only eleven
days, the small-pox, dysentery, and other diseases had
broken out with great virulence.*
Captain Wauchope, R.N., late of H.M.S. Thalia,
has stated to me, that Commander Castle, R.N.,
while on service with the preventive squadron in 1828,
in command of H.M.S. Medina, captured the Spanish
brig El Juan, with 407 slaves on board. It appeared
that, owing to a press of sail during the chase, the El
Juan had heeled so much, as to alarm the negroes,
who made a rush to the grating. The crew thought
they were attempting to rise, and getting out their
arms, they fired upon the wretched slaves through
the grating, till all was quiet in the hold. When
Captain Castle went on board, the negroes were
brought up, one living and one dead shackled to-
gether ; " it was an awful scene of carnage and blood ;
one mass of human gore : Captain Castle said he never
saw anything so horrible in his life."
Dr. Walsh, in his " Notices of Brazil," gives a
most animated picture of the state of a Spanish slaver,
detained by the vessel of war in which he returned
from Brazil, in May, 1829. He says, " When we
mounted her decks we found her full of slaves : she
* ClteslA. ii 1832/p. 13.
MORTALITY INCIDENT TO MIDDLE PASSAGE. 151
had taken on board 562, and had been out seventeen
days, during which she lost fifty-five. The slaves
were all enclosed under grated hatchways between
decks. The space was so low that they sat between
each other's legs, and stowed so close together that
there was no possibility of their lying down, or at all
changing their position by night or day. As they
belonged to, and were shipped on account of different
individuals, they were all branded like sheep, with
the owners' marks of different forms. These were
impressed under their breasts, or on their arms ; and,
as the mate informed me with perfect indifference,
' burned with the red-hot iron.' "
After many other particulars, the detail of which
my limits will not admit, Dr. Walsh continues :
— u The poor beings were all turned up together.
They came swarming up like bees from the aper-
ture of a hive, till the whole deck was crowded
to suffocation from stem to stern. On looking into
the places where they had been crammed, there were
found some children next the sides of the ship. The
little creatures seemed indifferent as to life or death,
and when they were carried on deck many of them
could not stand. Some water was brought : it was
then that the extent of their sufferings was exposed
in a fearful manner. They all rushed like maniacs
towards it. No entreaties, or threats, or blows could
restrain them ; they shrieked, and struggled, and
fought with one another for a drop of the precious
liquid, as if they grew rabid at the sight of it. There
152 THE SLAVE TRADE.
is nothing which slaves, during the middle passage,
suffer from so much as want of water. It is some-
times usual to take out casks filled with sea-water, as
ballast ; and when the slaves are received on board,
to start the casks, and refill them with fresh. On
one occasion, a ship from Bahia neglected to change
the contents of the casks, and, on the mid -passage,
found to their horror that they were filled with
nothing hut salt water. All the slaves on hoard
perished ! We could judge of the extent of their
sufferings from the sight we now saw. When the
poor creatures were ordered down again, several of
them came and pressed their heads against our knees,
with looks of the greatest anguish at the prospect of
returning to the horrid place of suffering below. It
was not surprising that they had lost fifty-five in the
space of seventeen days. Indeed, many of the sur-
vivors were seen lying about the decks, in the last
stage of emaciation, and in a state of filth and misery
not to be looked at.
" While expressing my horror at what I saw, and
exclaiming against the state of this vessel, I was in-
formed by my friends, who had passed so long a time
on the coast of Africa, and visited so many ships, that
this was one of the best they had seen. The height
sometimes, between decks, was only eighteen inches ;
so that the unfortunate beings could not turn round,
or even on their sides, the elevation being less than
the breadth of their shoulders ; and here they are
usually chained to the decks by the neck and legs.
MORTALITY INCIDENT TO MIDDLE PASSAGE. 153
After much deliberation, this wretched vessel was
allowed to proceed on her voyage.
" It was dark when we separated ; and the last
parting sounds we heard from the unhallowed ship
were the cries and shrieks of the slaves, suffering
under some bodily infliction.*
In the same year (1829), the Commissioners at
Havana reported that " The Fama de Cadiz came
into port, having previously landed 300 slaves at
Santa Cruz. It is said that this notorious slave-
trader and pirate had plundered other slave-vessels
on the coast of Africa of about 980 slaves, and had
scarcely sailed for Cuba, when the small-pox and
other contagious diseases broke out, which reduced
the crew of 157 to 66, and her slaves to about 300;
of whom the greatest part are in so wretched a state
that her owners have been selling them as low as
100 dollars."
They also report the arrival of the schooner Con-
stantia, in ballast, after having landed 70 slaves
on the coast. She is said to have left Africa with
438 negroes, who have been reduced, by the small-
pox, to the above small number. And they add, —
" The mortality on board the slave-vessels, this year,
has been truly shocking. "f
In 1829 we have the case of the Midas. This
vessel left the Bonny with a cargo of 560 slaves,
* Walsh's Notices of Brazil. London/ 1830. Vol. ii. p. 475,
&c.
t Class A. 1829, p, 156.
154 THE SLAVE TRADE.
and had only 400 on board at the time of detention.
Of these, after the surrender, about thirty threw
themselves into the sea. Before she arrived at Ha-
vana, nine other negroes had thrown themselves
overboard : sixty-nine had died of the small-pox and
other diseases. After their arrival, ten more died.
The remainder (282) were then in a most dreadful
state ; so ill and so emaciated, that "it has hitherto
been impossible," says the medical officer, " to make
out the descriptions of their persons and marks that
are inserted in their certificates of emancipation."*
In 1831, Captain Hamilton thus writes to the
Commissioners : — " On our getting into Bahia, in
the afternoon of the same day, I sent two officers on
board the Destimida, to search. They, after some
time, and with much difficulty, discovered fifty male
negro slaves concealed in the bottom of the vessel. "f
" Five young men were extricated from one water-
butt ; but the greater part had been stowed or
forced into the small or close spaces between the
water-casks under the false decks. "J
Captain Hayes, R.N., mentions the case of a
slaver having a large cargo of human beings chained
together. " The master of the vessel, with more
humanity than his fellows, permitted some of them
to come on deck (but still chained together) for the
benefit of the air, when they immediately com-
menced jumping overboard, hand in hand, and
* Class A. 1829, p. 14S. f Class A. 1831, p. 127.
X Class B. 1831, p. 117.
MORTALITV INCIDENT TO MIDDLE PASSAGE. 155
drowning in couples." He explains the cause of
this circumstance by saying, " they were just
brought from a situation between decks, and to
which they knew they must return, where the
scalding perspiration was running from one to the
other, covered also with their own filth, and where
it is no uncommon occurrence for women to be
bringing forth children, and men dying by their
side, with, full in their view, living and dead bodies
chained together; and the living, in addition to all
their other torments, labouring under the most
famishing thirst, being in very few instances allowed
more than a pint of water a-day. He goes on to
say : — " I have now an officer on board the Dryad,
who, on examining one of these slave-vessels, found,
not only living men chained to dead bodies, but the
latter in a putrid state ; and we have now a case
which, if true, is too horrible and disgusting to be
described."*
In the same year (1831), the Black Joke and
Fair Rosamond fell in with the Rapido and Regulo,
two slave-vessels, off the Bonny river. On per-
ceiving the cruisers, they attempted to make their
escape up the river; but, finding it impracticable,
they ran into a creek, and commenced pitching the
negroes overboard. The Fair Rosamond came up
in time to save 212 slaves out of the Regulo ; but,
before she could secure the other, she had discharged
her whole human cargo into the sea. Captain
* Class B. p. 70.
M
156 THE SLAVE TRADE.
Huntley, who was then in command of the Rosa-
mond, in a letter to me, remarks, — " The scene
occasioned by the horrid conduct of the Rapido
I am unable to describe ; but the dreadful extent to
which the human mind is capable of falling was
never shown in a more painfully humiliating manner
than on this occasion, when, for the mere chance of
averting condemnation of property amounting to
perhaps £3,000, not less than 250 human beings
were hurled into eternity with utter remorselessness."
The master of an English merchant-vessel, who
happened to be in the Bonny at the time, witnessed
the whole affair. He lately told me that " the chase
was so vigorous, and the slavers so anxious to escape,
that they came flying into the creek, and ran aground
in the mud. They then threw overboard what re-
mained of the negroes ; but very few, from their
being shackled together, reached the shore ; and that
he and his crew helped to get the vessels again afloat,
which was accomplished with much difficulty. He
afterwards met the captain of one of the slavers, who
justified what he had done as an act which necessity
compelled him to adopt for the preservation of his
property."
Captain Ramsay, who at the time commanded the
Black Joke, has stated to me that, during the chase,
he and his men distinctly saw the sharks tearing the
bodies of the negroes who were thrown overboard
by the slavers ; and that, had it not been for the for-
tunate rescue of two of the slaves of the Rapido, who
MORTALITY INCIDENT TO MIDDLE PASSAGE. 157
had been flung into the sea, shackled together, and
who were brought up from under water by a boat-
hook, that vessel would have escaped condemnation,
as all her slaves had been thrown overboard, or
landed in canoes before they came up with her.*
In a letter which I received from Captain Wau-
chope, of date 13th August, 1838, he says,—" In
February, 1836, I was informed by Commander
Puget, that the Spanish slaver, Argus, three months
before this date, was chased by the Charybdis, Lieu-
tenant Mercer ; that, during the chase, ninety-seven
slaves had been thrown overboard, and that a Spanish
captain he had captured declared he would never
hesitate to throw the slaves overboard to prevent
being taken."
Were it not that the evidence on these cases is
unexceptionable, we could not believe that there did
exist human beings capable of uttering such senti-
ments, or of performing such infamous deeds.
Captain Wauchope, in the same letter, informs
me, that on the 18th September, 1836, the Thalia
captured the Portuguese brig Felix, 590 slaves on
board. " After capture," he says, '* I went on board,
and such a scene of horror it is not easy to describe :
the long-boat on the booms, and the deck aft, were
crowded with little children, sickly, poor little un-
happy things, some of them rather pretty, and some
much marked and tattooed : much pains must have
* See an account of this case in the United Service Journal for
1833, part i., p. 505, &c.
m2
V
158 THE SLAVE TRADE.
been taken by their miserable parents to ornament
and beautify them.
"The women Jay between decks aft, much
crowded, and perfectly naked : they were not barred
down, the hatchway, a small one, being off; but
the place for the men was too horrible : the wretches,
chained two and two, gasping and striving to get at
the bars of the hatchways, and such a steam and
stench as to make it intolerable even to look down.
It requires much caution at first, in allowing them
to go on deck, as it is a common practice for them to
jump overboard to get quit of their misery.
" The slave-deck was not more than three feet six
in height, and the human beings stowed, or rather
crushed as close as possible ; many appeared very
sickly. There was no way of getting into the slave-
room but by the hatchway. I was told, when they
were all on deck to be counted, that it was impossible
for any of our people to go into the slave-room for a
single minute, so intolerable was the stench. The
colour of these poor creatures was of a dark squalid
yellow, so different from the fine glossy black of our
liberated Africans and Kroomen. I was shown a
man much bit and bruised : it was done in a struggle
at the gratings of their hatchways for a mouthful of
fresh air."
It is fearful to contemplate the increase of late
years, in the mortality during the middle passage.
The chief reason, as it appears, is well given by
Laird in his journal of the recent expedition to the
MORTALITY INCIDENT TO MIDDLE PASSAGE. 159
Niger. He says : — " Instead of the large and com-
modious vessels which it would be to the interest of
the slave-trader to employ, we have, by our inter-
ference, forced him to use a class of vessels, (well
known to naval men as American dippers,) of the
very worst description that could have been imagined
for the purpose, every quality being sacrificed for
speed. In the holds of these vessels the unhappy
victims of European cupidity are stowed literally
in bulk."*
It ought also to be kept in view, that there is this
material difference betwixt these " clippers " and
other merchant-vessels : that while the latter usually
carry far more than their registered tonnage would
seem to permit, the former invariably exhibit a
capacity for a cargo greatly below the tonnage by
registration.
As a proof of the increase in the mortality on the
middle passage, I may adduce the evidence of Mr.
Jackson (who had been a judge in the Mixed Com-
mission Court at Sierra Leone) before the Committee
on Sierra Leone, &c, in 1830. In answer to a
question, he said, " I think the sufferings of those
poor slaves are greatly aggravated by the course now
adopted ; for the trade is now illegal, and therefore
whatever is done, is done clandestinely : they are
packed more like bales of goods on board than
human beings, and the general calculation is, that if
* Laird, vol. ii. p. 369.
160 THE SLAVE TRADE.
in three adventures one succeeds, the owners are
well paid."*
Were it not that I feel bound to substantiate my
case up to the present time, I would gladly pass over
the numberless instances of cruelty and mortality
connected with this branch of the subject, which, are
made known to us by the papers laid before Parlia-
ment within the last few years. But I shall notice
some of these instances, as briefly as can be done,
without suppressing the main facts which are esta-
blished by them.
The Carolina, captured in 1834, off Wydah.f
" This vessel w r as only seventy-five tons burden, yet
she had 350 negroes crammed on board of her, 180
of whom were literally so stowed as to have barely
sufficient height to hold themselves up, when in a
sitting posture. The poor creatures crowded round
their deliverers, with their mouths open and their
tongues parched for want of water, presenting a
perfect spectacle of human misery."
The Patacho, reported by the Commissioners at
Rio de Janeiro in 1835 : — This " vessel was in the
first instance detained only on suspicion, and the
capturing party had had possession forty-eight hours,
and had made every possible search, as they supposed,
before it was discovered that there were any slaves
concealed on board. What the state of these wretched
beings, to the number of forty-seven, must have been,
* Sierra Leone Report, 1830, pp. 55.
t Class A. 1834, p. 17-
MORTALITY INCIDENT TO MIDDLE PASSAGE. 161
deprived for so long a time of air and food, and
packed in the smallest possible compass, like so
many bales of goods, we need not pain your Lord-
ship by describing."*
In a letter from the Cape of Good Hope, of date
20th January, 1837, we find it stated that Her
Majesty's brig Dolphin had lately captured the cor-
vette Incomprehensible ; and that, on taking posses-
sion of her, " the scene presented on board was
harrowing in the extreme. One hundred had died
from sickness, out of the 800 embarked ; another 100
were lying nearly lifeless on her decks, in wretch-
edness and misery, and all the agony of despair ;
the remaining 600 were so cramped from the close
manner in which they were packed (like herrings
in a barrel), and the length of time they had been
on their voyage, and the cold they had endured in
rounding the Cape, in a state of nudity, that it took
the utmost exertions of the English sailors, favoured
by a hot sun, to straighten them."f
In the Shipping and Mercantile Gazette of 2d
June, 1838, is the following paragraph : — " A letter
from the f Snake ' sloop of war, dated 31st March,
1838, says, ' We have captured a very fine schooner,
called the Arogan, off Cape Antonio, having 350
slaves of both sexes, under the age of 20, and have
sent her into the Havana for adjudication. She
cleared out from Gallinas, and lost 50 on her pas-
* Class A. 1835, p. 286.
f From a correspondent of the ' Times ' newspaper.
162 THE SLAVE TRADE.
sage by death, owing to the crowded manner in
which they were packed, resembling goods in a dra-
per's shop.' "
I know of no more striking case of excessive
crowding than that of the Spanish Felucca Si, of
only 71 British tons, which was captured in May,
1839, by Her Majesty's brig Waterwitch, with 360
slaves on board, making an average of more than five
to one ton, with which she was about to proceed
across the Atlantic.
In the parliamentary papers printed in 1838 by
the House of Commons, I observe the following
cases reported : — "The brig Don Manuel de Portugal,
from Angola, embarked 600 slaves ; of these 73 died
on the voyage."
" Brig Adamastor, from Quilimane, embarked 800
slaves ; of these 304 died on the voyage !"
" Brig Lecio, from Quilimane, embarked 855
slaves ; of these 283 died, or were thrown over-
board alive, during the voyage. .The small-pox
having appeared among the slaves, 30 of them were
immediately thrown overboard alive ; afterwards the
measles made its appearance, of which 253 died.
The remaining slaves, 572 in number, were landed
on the coast of Brazil at Mozambayo, near to Una
Grande, but in so miserable a state that, the greater
part could not walk, but were carried on shore."*
" The brig Flor de Quilimane, from Quilimane,
embarked 850 slaves; of these 163 died on the pas-
* Class B. 1837, p. 58.
MORTALITY INCIDENT TO MIDDLE PASSAGE. 163
sage, and 697 were landed at Campos in a very
sickly state."*
In a letter from a member of the Society of
Friends, dated Havana, July 14th, 1836, and pub-
lished in the Colonization Herald, Philadelphia,
Aug. 15th, 1838, 1 find the following passage : — " In
company with an English naval officer, I made a
visit across the bay to several of these slave-vessels.
We were permitted to walk over them, but no
particular attention was paid to us ; on the con-
trary, we were looked upon with suspicion, and
received short and unsatisfactory answers to our
questions in general ; all attempts to enter into
conversation with those on board appeared useless.
With one, however, we were more successful : an
old weather-beaten Spaniard was walking the deck ;
* Class B. 1837, p. 60.
In the Commissioners' Report for 1838-9, I find the loss on
the passage thus stated : —
Shipped. Died on Voyage.
Cintra * . . 970 214
Brillante . . 621 214
Commodore . . 685 300
Esplorador . . 560 360
2,836 1,088
These vessels had sailed from the eastern coast of Africa, and
arrived at Rio ; excepting the Esplorador, which arrived at
Havana. The report contains the names of many other vessels,
but of these four only the numbers are stated. It is impossible
not to believe that the deaths in the remainder have been at least
equal in proportion. Class A. 1838-9, passim.
164 THE SLAVE TRADE.
although an old pirate. Ins expression of countenance
was line : taking a seat under the awning on the
quarter-deck, offering him a bundle of eigaritas, and
lighting one ourselves, by degrees induced him to
enter into conversation, and, in the course of one
hour or more, I learned from him some horrid truths.
He told us that, in four voyages, he had brought in
the vessel in which we were 1,600 human beings ;
his was a fortunate vessel, and seldom lost more than
half a dozen a voyage : once, however, he told us, he
was not so lucky ; a malignant disease broke out on
board soon after leaving the coast, and, of 300 taken
in in Africa, but ninety-rive were landed, more dead
than alive, on the island.
" The materiel, such as handcuffs, chains, and even
he lower-decks, are taken out and are fitted up on
the coast of Africa. "We saw the apertures in the
decks to admit the air, and, as we were leaving the
brig in our boat alongside, the captain exultingly told
us that he knew we were officers of the British sloop-
of-war, pointing to the Champion, which was riding
at anchor at a little distance from us ; ' but/ added he,
' you are welcome. I yesterday showed your captain
(meaning of the Champion) all over my trim vessel.
I have nothing to conceal — you dare not touch me
here ; and, once outside (with an expressive shrug of
the shoulders), you may catch me if you can." '
We have little authentic information as to the
transport of the slaves from one part of the coast to
another in south-east Africa, or from that coast to
MORTALITY INCIDENT TO MIDDLE PASSAGE. 165
Arabia, and the other countries northwards, to which
they are conveyed. But Captain Moresby, to whom
I have alread alluded, described to me the passage
coastways, in the following terms : — " The Arab
dows, or vessels, are large, unwieldy, open boats,
without a deck. In these vessels temporary plat-
forms of bamboos are erected, leaving a narrow pas-
sage in the centre. The negroes are then stowed, in
the literal sense of the word, in bulk ; the first along
the floor of the vessel, two adults, side by side, with
a boy or girl resting between or on them, until the
tier is complete. Over them the first platform is
laid, supported an inch or two clear of their bodies:,
when a second tier is stowed, and so on until they
reach the gunwale of the vessel.
" The voyage, they expect, will not exceed twenty-
four or forty-eight hours : it often happens that a
calm, or unexpected land-breeze, delays their pro-
gress : in this case a few hours are sufficient to decide
the fate of the cargo ; those of the lower portion of
the cargo, that die, cannot be removed. They remain
until the upper part are dead, and thrown over, and,
from a cargo of from 200 to 400 stowed in this way,
it has been known that not a dozen, at the expira-
tion of ten days, have reached Zanzebar. On the
arrival of the vessels at Zanzebar the cargo are
landed ; those that can walk up the beach are ar-
ranged for the inspection of the Imaum's officer,
and the payment of duties — those that are weak or
maimed by the voyage are left for the coming tide to
relieve their miseries. An examination then takes
166 THE SLAVE TRADE.
place, which for brutality has never been exceeded in
Smithfield."
In immediate connexion with the mortality in-
cident to the middle passage, I come now to the
subject of
Wrecks, etc.
In Appendix D, of the African Institution Report
for 1820, we are told that a " Spanish brig, on arriv-
ing at Point a Petre, experienced a severe squall,
and, on the captain opening the hatches (which were
let down during the squall), he found fifty of the
poor Africans dead."
In Appendix B. of the same report, we find, in a
statement of Sir G. Collier, Dec. 27, 1821, that the
schooner Carlotta embarked, off CapePalmas, " 269
slaves ; and the very next clay, in a tornado off St.
Ann's, for want of timely precaution, upset, and,
dreadful to relate, the whole of these wretched people,
confined in irons, sank with her."
In the parliamentary papers for 1822 we find,
" The schooner Yeanam was separated from the other
vessels in a dreadful storm, as they were proceeding
to Havana, and sank, with 380 slaves on board."'*
The Accession, an English brig, brought into
Bahia thirty-nine negroes, whom she rescued from a
wreck abandoned by its crew. Thirty-one were
found holding by the top of a mast. On cutting the
side of the vessel open, they took out ten more from
an almost pestilential atmosphere, and saw a number
* Pari. Papers, 11th July, 1823, p. 1.
MORTALITY INCIDENT TO MIDDLE PASSAGE. 167
lying dead. The crew, and 138 of the slaves, had
been previously taken out by the Viajante ; but, as
that vessel was herself carrying 622 negroes, she had
left these others to perish in the waves.*
I find, by an extract from the Sierra Leone Gazette
of the 12th June, 1824, that, " on the appearance of
H.M.S. Victor, a boat full of men was seen to leave
the lugger (I'Henriette Aimee), after which she got
under weigh, but, instead of attempting to escape, run
on shore in a heavy surf, where she immediately went
to pieces ; and, from the number of blacks observed
on her decks, there can be no doubt she had her
cargo of slaves on board, all of whom perished."
By the despatch of the Commissioners at Havana,
of 26th February, 1826, it appears that "the Magico
was fallen in with and chased by H.M.S. Union, and,
having been brought to action in the course of the
21st January, she was finally run on shore on the
morning of the 22nd_, and shortly after taken posses-
sion of. The crew had previously escaped to land
with (it is supposed) about 200 negroes ; many, how-
ever, were left behind, severely wounded, some were
hanging on at different parts of the vessel, and from
twenty to thirty of their dead bodies were seen in
the sea, evidently the consequence of the endeavours
made to force them to jump overboard and swim
to the shore. The crew even carried their barbarity
so far as to leave a lighted match in the powder-
magazine."'!"
* Afr. Inst. Report, 1826, pp. 37, 38. t Class A. 1827, p. 99.
168 THE SLAVE TRADE.
In the parliamentary papers of 1827 I find the
case of the " Teresa," a Spanish schooner, which
was suddenly laid on her beam- ends by a tornado,
and almost immediately went down, with 186 slaves
on board.*
We have also the account of a wreck of a Portu-
guese slave-schooner, the Piombeter, at the Bahamas,
on the 20th of January, 1837, communicated to me
by Major M'Gregor, a special justice. He states
that the vessel was under fifty tons burden, and that
180 slaves had been embarked in her : " they were
chiefly fine young lads under fifteen years of age."
About twenty had died before the wreck took place.
In another letter, dated Nov. 1, 1837, he states
that several wrecks of slavers had taken place
in his vicinity. As to one of these he says, " Last
Friday, the 27th uit, a schooner vessel, under
the Portuguese flag, was totally wrecked on the
shore of Harbour Island, where I now reside in
my official capacity, having upwards of 200 African
slaves on board at the time, only fifty-three of whom
were saved ; the greater part of the ablest men, being
chained together below at the time, were consequently
drowned in the hold of the vessel. Sixty bodies have
since been washed ashore, which I got interred ; up-
wards of twenty were drifted yesterday to the mouth
of the harbour, who seem to have been fettered upon
the deck, and grouped together in one heap. It is
* Class A. 1827, p. 30.
MORTALITY INCIDENT TO MIDDLE PASSAGE. 169
supposed that from fifty to sixty bodies are still re-
maining in the hold of the hull, now almost imbedded
in the sand. Attempts have been made to dive for
the bodies, but without success, they being found so
fast chained and crowded together, it was found im-
possible to remove them.
" I shall not shock your feelings by entering into
the details of the abominable conduct of the captain
and crew of this vessel during the passage towards
some of the most youthful and best-looking on board :
this was brought to my knowledge by two of the
Africans, who speak Portuguese, and one who speaks
a little broken English, They appear to have con-
ducted themselves more like demons than human
beings.
"The slaver, named the Invincible, took in the
Africans at Port Prague, Cape de Verde Islands, and
was bound for Matanzas in the island of Cuba."
In a letter from Colonel Nicolls, at the Bahamas,
of date 1st August, 1837,* it is stated that " the Es-
peranza, a Spanish slave- schooner, had been wrecked
on one of these islands during the preceding month.
It was ascertained that this vessel had embarked
320 negroes on the coast of Africa ; of these only
220 were landed at the time of the wreck. It
appears that between sixty and seventy murders had
been committed during the voyage on the helpless
Africans ; and in this manner : — When any of the
* Communicated to me by his brother, Col. Nicolls, R.M.
170 THE SLAVE TRADE.
slaves refused their food or became sick, the boat-
swain's mate, with a weighty club, struck them on
the back of the neck, when they fell, and were
thrown overboard."
I make the following extract from the Jamaica
Watchman, of 29th May, 1S38 : — A report having
reached Port Royal, that a Spanish schooner,* hav-
ing on board upwards of 300 Africans, had been
stranded off the Pedro shoals, H. M. ship Nimrod,
and the Hornet schooner, sailed yesterday morning
for the purpose of taking her cargo, and bringing
them into port. The vessels of war, humanely sent
to seek the unfortunate Africans on board the slaver
lately wrecked on the Pedro reefs, have returned,
bringing the melancholy information that no traces of
them could be found. The vessel had gone to pieces,
and 300 human beings consigned to a watery grave.
The crew had taken to their boats and landed at Black
River."f
* Since this was written, the official account of the wreck of
this vessel, the Estella, has reached us, in which it is stated that
" the crew escaped on shore, leaving the unfortunate Africans on
the shoal, and had been landed some days before they made
known the fatal circumstances of the wreck ; so that when the
fact transpired and search was made, it was found their victims
had all perished."— Class A. 1838-9, p. 111.
t Her Majesty's judge at Havana writes to Lord Palmerston,of
date 17th July, 1838: — " The vessel which came in here under
the name of the Esplorador, sailed hence on 13th June, 1837, to
Madagascar and Mozambique, and not finding any negroes on
the coast to be bought, forcibly and piratically took from the other
MORTALITY INCIDENT TO MIDDLE PASSAGE. 17)
Lieut. Wilson, of H. M. S. Excellent, who was
on the coast of Africa in 1824, in a letter dated
9th January, 1839, says: — "I have overhauled
many slave-ships, and freely confess that it is impos-
sible to exaggerate the horrors they exhibit : they are
all very much alike, the greater or less misery de-
pending, usually, upon the size of the vessel, and the
time they might have been embarked, as every day
brings with it a fearful increase of disease, despera-
tion, imbecility, and death."
Passing over hundreds of cases of a description
similar to those which I have noticed, I have now
done with these heart-sickening details; and the
melancholy truth is forced upon us, that, notwith-
standing all that has been accomplished, the cruelties
and horrors of the passage across the Atlantic have
increased ; nay, more, they have been aggravated by
the very efforts which we have made for the abolition
of the traffic.
" Facts, too, like these just mentioned, are not extra-
ordinary incidents, selected and remembered as such.
They are hourly occurrences of the trade ; and as they
vessels there the cargoes they had collected. Having thus got
together about 500 negroes, before they got out of the range of
the monsoons they encountered very violent weather, which lasted
two days, and compelled them to shut down the hatches, without
being able to give the negroes, during that time, air or food. The
consequence was that, when the storm abated, and they went to
examine their condition, they found that about 300 negroes had
perished ! With the ordinary mortality attending Euch voyages,
they arrived here with only about 200 surviving."
N
172 THE SLAVE TRADE.
are found in every instance where detection affords
an opportunity of inquiry, it is absurd to suppose
that the undetected slave-vessel is exempted from
scenes of similar cruelty. It may fairly be assumed
that greater cruelty does not obtain in the one vessel
which is captured, than in the one hundred which
escape. Some of these have made eleven, some
thirteen, successful voyages, and there is little doubt
that similar acts of atrocity have been perpetrated in
all — that all have been marked by the same accumu-
lation of human agony, and the same waste of human
life."*
I will endeavour to give a
Summary
of the extent of the mortality incident to the middle
passage. Newton states, that in his time it amounted
to one-fourth, on the average, of the number em-
barked.t
From papers presented to the House of Lords, in
1799, it appears that, in the year 1791, (three years
after the passing of the Slave Carrying Regulation
Act,) of 15,754 negroes embarked for the West
Indies, &c, 1378 died during the passage, the ave-
rage length of which was fifty-one days, showing a
mortality of 8| per cent.
The amount of the mortality in 1792 was still
greater, Of 3 1,554 slaves carried from Africa, no
* Afr. Inst. Report for 1825, p. 31. t Newton, p. 36.
MORTALITY INCIDENT TO MIDDLE PASSAGE. 173
fewer than 5,413 died on the passage, making some-
what more than 17 per cent, in fifty-one days.*
Captain Owen, in a communication to the Admi-
ralty, on the Slave Trade with the eastern coast of
Africa, in 1823, states — " That the ships which use
this traffic consider they make an excellent voyage
if they save one-third of the number embarked :"
" some vessels are so fortunate as to save one-half of
their cargo alive."f
Captain Cook says, in the communication to which
I have before alluded, as to the East coast traffic, " If
they meet with bad weather, in rounding the Cape,
their sufferings are beyond description ; and in some
instances one-half of the lives on board are sacrificed.
In the case of the e Napoleon,' from Quilimane, the
loss amounted to two-thirds. It was stated to me by
Captains and Supercargoes of other slavers, that they
made a profitable voyage if they lost fifty per cent. ;
and that this was not uncommon."
Caldcleugh says, " scarcely two-thirds live to be
landed."|
Governor Maclean, of Cape Coast, who has had
many opportunities of acquiring information on the
subject, has stated to me, that he considers the ave-
rage of deaths on the passage to amount to one-third.
Captain Ramsay, R. N., who was a long time on
service with the Preventive Squadron, also stated to
me, that the mortality on the passage across the
* Debates in Parliament, 1806, Ap. p. 191.
t Class B. 1825, p. 41. \ Vol. i. p. 56.
n2
174 THE SLAVE TRADE.
Atlantic must be greater than the loss on the passage
to Sierra Leone, from the greater liberty allowed after
capture, and from the removal of the shackles. He
believes the average loss to be one-third.
Rear-Admiral Sir Graham Eden Hamond, Com-
mander-in-Chief on the South American station, in
1834, thus writes to the British Consul at Monte
Video : — " A slave-brig of 202 tons was brought
into this port with 521 slaves on board. The vessel
is said to have cleared from Monte Video in August
last, under a licence to import 650 African colonists.
" The licence to proceed to the coast of Africa is
accompanied by a curious document, purporting to be
an application from two Spaniards at Monte Video,
named Villaca and Barquez, for permission to import
650 colonists, and 250 more — to cover the deaths on
the vol/ age."*
Here we have nearly one-third given apparently
for the average loss on the passage, and this esti-
mated by the slave-dealers themselves on the American
side of the Atlantic.
I come next to consider the loss after capture.
* Class B. 1835, p. 141.
175
MORTALITY AFTER CAPTURE.
I have just adverted to the painful reflection that the
efforts which we have so long and so perseveringly
made for the abolition of the Slave Trade should not
only have been attended with complete failure, but
with an increase of negro mortality. A striking ex-
ample of the truth of this remark is afforded, when
we consider the great loss of negro life which annually
takes place subsequently to the capture of the slave-
vessels, on their passage to South America and the
West Indies.
I do not intend, in this part of my subject, to dis-
cuss the merits of the construction of the Mixed Com-
mission Courts, or their forms of proceeding ; nor do
I propose, here, to say anything as to the preference
which, it appears to me, ought to be given to Fer-
nando Po, over Sierra Leone, as a station for a Com-
mission Court, and a depot for liberated Africans : my
purpose for the present is, merely to state the facts
which have come to my knowledge, with the requisite
evidence, bearing on the mortality after capture.
Admiral Hamond, in a despatch to the Admiralty
on this subject, in the year 1834, puts the case of a
176 THE SLAVE TRADE.
slaver overloaded with negroes, many of them in a
sickly or dying state, captured and brought into Rio
Janeiro, (as in the case of the " Rio de la Plata,")
where the miserable slaves, confined to the vessel, in
a hot and close port, must await the tardy process of
the Mixed Commission Court ; and he goes on to say,
that, in such a case, " the stopping of the slave-vessel
is only exposing the blacks to greater misery, and a
much greater chance of speedy death, than if they
were left to their original destination of slavery."*
In the 21st Report of the African Institution, we
have the case of the Pauleta, captured off Cape For-
mosa, in Ferbuary, 1826, by " Lieutenant Tucker,
H. M. Ship Maidstone, with 221 slaves on board.
Her burden was only 69 tons, and into this space
were thrust 82 men, 56 women, 39 boys, and 44
girls. The only provision found on board for their
subsistence was yams of the worst quality, and fetid
water. When captured, both small-pox and dysen-
tery had commenced their ravages ; 30 died on the
passage to Sierra Leone, and the remainder were
landed in an extreme state of wretchedness and ema-
ciation." f
In 1830, a Committee of the House of Commons
was appointed to consider the relative merits of Sierra
Leone and Fernando Po. Captain Bullen stated in
evidence before the Committee, that the Aviso, cap-
tured near L ernando Po, took five weeks to reach
Sierra Leone, during which time forty-five of the
* Class B. 1S35, p. 6G. t Afr. Inst. Report for 1S27, p. 9.
MORTALITY AFTER CAPTURE. 177
slaves died ; and that in the case of the Segunda Ro-
salia, the passage occupied eleven weeks, during
which more than 120 of the slaves were lost.*
Lieutenant Tringham informed the Committee that
he carried a Spanish schooner up to Sierra Leone as
prize-master. She had 480 slaves on board at the
time of capture. The voyage to Sierra Leone occu-
pied six weeks, and 110 slaves died on the passage.
In answer to the question, " If you had had to have
taken the vessel to Fernando Po for adjudication,
instead of Sierra Leone, the lives of those persons
would have been saved ? " he replied, " I think so."
He afterwards said, that the average voyage of the
vessels he had taken from the Bights of Benin and
Biafra to Sierra Leone, was five weeks. j
Mr. Jackson stated to the Committee, that the
condition of the slaves, at the time of capture, was
" most deplorable, as to disease, and as to the mor-
tality which has ensued : in one instance, 179 out of
448 slaves, on board of one vessel, died in their pas-
sage up ; in another, 115 out of 271. In all, with
only one exception, the numbers have been consi-
derable. "J
Mr. John M'Cormack, in his evidence, said, that
on going aboard slave-vessels after capture and the
passage to Sierra Leone, he generally found the
"slaves who had been any length of time on the voyage
" in a most miserable state of debility." And he
* Sierra Leone Report, 1830, p. 8. f lb. p. 32.
J lb. p. 52.
17^ THE SLAVE TRADE.
adds, " They unavoidably must, from the description
of the vessels, suffer very greatly : many of these ves-
sels have not more than three feet between decks, and
no air can "get to them except what comes down the
hatchways. They are so low in the water, no air-
ports can be cut in their sides."*
In the Appendix to the Report of this Committee,
a return is given for the period between 10th August,
1819, and 11th October, 1829,—
Of slaves captured .... 25,212
Landed at Sierra Leone, orFernando Po 21,563
Loss on the passage . 3,649 f
Being nearly one-seventh, or about 14 per cent.; and
this almost entirely on the passage to Sierra Leone.
Mr. Rankin, in his visit to Sierra Leone, tells
us of a Portuguese schooner, the Donna Maria
da Gloria, which he saw there, with a cargo of
slaves on board. She had embarked them at
Loando, in August, 1833, and was captured by
H. M. B. Snake. The captor took the vessel to Rio,
but the Brazilian Mixed Commission Court would
not entertain the case : he was therefore obliged to
send her to Sierra Leone, where she arrived on Fe-
bruary 4, 1834. On her arrival, it was ascertained that
she had lost 95 out of 430 slaves. A long process en-
sued before the Mixed Commission Court, the result
of which was the liberation of the vessel ; and at this
* Sierra Leone Report, p. 66. f lb. Ap. p. 122.
MORTALITY AFTER CAPTURE. 179
period her state is thus described : " Notwithstand-
ing the exertions of Mr. Thomas Frazer, assistant-
surgeon of the capturing ship, who continued to ad-
minister to them while himself in a state of extreme
suffering and danger, before reaching Sierra Leone,
104 had died, and 64 more (in a state that moved
the heart even of the slave-crew) were voluntarily
landed by the master, and taken charge of by the
liberated African department. The miserable rem-
nant, in a state impossible to describe, afflicted with
ophthalmia, dysentery, and frightful ulcers, and show-
ing, also, some symptoms of small-pox, left the har-
bour of Sierra Leone, the slaves having been then
on board 165 days, 137 having elapsed since her
capture ; and of her original cargo of 430, 240 alone
remained."*
Dr. Cullen, of Edinburgh, who lately returned
from Rio de Janeiro, after a five years' residence
there, thus writes to Lord Glenelg, of date 28th
February, 1838, in reference to the Donna Maria
having been released at Sierra Leone : " Some
months after this, they were met by a Brazilian ship
of war, near Bahia, in distress ; and their numbers
reduced to 170." f
Mr. Rankin visited La Pantica, another vessel
which had been brought into Sierra Leone. " The
ship," he says, " was thronged with men, women,
and children, all entirely naked, and disgusting with
* Rankin's Visit, &c, vol. ii. p. 96.
t Class A. (Further Series), 1837, p. 91.
180 THE SLAVE TRADE.
disease : 274 were at this moment in the little
schooner. When captured, 315 had been found on
board ; 40 had died during the voyage from Old
Calebar. Of the remainder, 8 or 10 died in the first
week after liberation. The majority of the survivors
were miserably persecuted by ophthalmia and dysen-
tery, and 50 were sent to the hospital, for fever, at
Kissey."*
In a report of the Sierra Leone Commissioners,
dated 4th February, 1835,f it is stated that "the
Sutil arrived in this harbour on the 23rd ult. with 228
slaves on board, 79 having died on the passage to
this port, whilst the vessel was in charge of the cap-
tors ; in addition to a frightful loss of life which had
previously occurred on the first night of the voyage,
owing to a ferocious scramble for room, amongst the
densely-crowded negroes, and by which many were
suffocated and killed. The surgeon to the courts
immediately visited the slaves, and reported that there
were 21 men and boys, and 8 girls, sick with dysen-
tery, many of them being in an advanced stage of
the disease."
The case of the Flor de Loando is one which de-
serves considerable attention, as it affords an instance,
and that a modern one, of dreadful suffering and
mortality, and shows the disposition of the Brazilian
authorities to thwart, as far as possible, the intentions
of the British Government.
* Rankin, vol. ii. p, 1. f Class A. 1835, p. 48.
MORTALITY AFTER CAPTURE. 181
This slaver was captured on the 11th April, 1838,
by H. M. corvette, Rover, with 289 negroes on
board, and taken to Rio de Janeiro. The Mixed
Commission Court at that port refused to condemn
her, on the ground of her having been seized in Por-
tuguese colours, although both the vessel and slaves
were known to be Brazilian property. The Brazilian
Government having afterwards received an applica-
tion to condemn her as a smuggler, or a vessel with
false papers, refused to take cognizance of her, or to
render any assistance to the slaves, who were now in
a dreadful state of disease, having been kept confined
in the hold of the slave ship more than three months
from the time of her capture. With considerable
difficulty the authorities were induced to allow the
worst cases to be transferred to the hospital, on being
guaranteed their expenses ; but persisted in refusing
any means for conveying the wretched negroes to a
more wholesome situation, though such a change was
pronounced absolutely necessary for the preservation
of their lives. The deaths up to this period amounted
to 80. On the 23rd August, Lieutenant Armitage,
the officer in command, was ordered to proceed to
Sierra Leone, with the slaver and her cargo, then
reduced to 140; but on the 27th instant she sprung
a leak, and was compelled to return to Rio in a
sinking condition. On examination, her timbers
were found to be rotten, and she was pronounced
totally unfit for sea. The deaths at this time
amounted to 119; notwithstanding, permission was
182 THE SLAVE TRADE
still denied by the Brazilian Government to land the
neoroes till the 15th September, jive months after
their capture ; during which time expenses were in-
curred by the British Government to the amount of
£812. In order to form an idea of the sufferings of
the miserable victims, Ave must conceive them lying
for so many months in the state thus described by
Lieutenant Armitage . — " They were stowed so close,
till thinned by death, as necessarily to press one
against another, and there was barely room for them
to sit upright. He used to visit them of a morning,
accompanied by a sailor, in a crouching position, and
draw out those w T ho had died, by the legs, there not
being room to go between them to take up their bo-
dies." The stench he represents to have been most
horrible.
The following list of seventeen vessels, most of
which were captured in the Bights of Benin and
Biafra, and brought for adjudication to Sierra Leone,
will serve to exhibit the loss after capture in a forcible
manner : —
MORTALITY AFTER CAPTURE.
183
Where
Number
Died
Reference.
con-
Vessel's Name.
Nation.
on
before
Page.
demned.
Board
Adjudi-
cation.
Class A.
<u /•Einelia
Spanish
282
107
1828
39
o I Invincivel
Portuguese
440
190
) J
59
j 1 Clementina
Brazilian
471
115
1829
82
rt \ Ceres
do.
279
151
1830
64
g 1 Arcinia
do.
448
179
j >
38
"c/5 (.Mensageira
do.
353
109
i )
58
g f Midas
Spanish
562
281
> >
148
S| < Constancia *
do.
438
36 8*
) }
162
J2 [Fama de Cadiz f
do.
980
680f
) >
156
a3 Christina
do.
348
132
1831
21
a
o
Tentadora
Brazilian
432
112
} !
54
Umbellina
do.
377
214
> >
65
sj ) Formidable
Spanish
712
304
1835
50
| Sutil
do.
335
124
s >
48
55 I Minerva
do.
725
208
j >
56
||Marte
> \Diligencia
do.
600
197
> )
163
do.
210
90
3 J
200
* This vessel was not bi
ought before the
number
s are
7992
3561
Court
The
given on the authority of M
r. Commissary Ji
idge Mt
icleay.
f The same of the Fama c
e Cadiz.
Showing a loss on these selected cases of 44 per
cent. !
In 1830, the Committee of the House of Commons
came to the following resolution : that captured ves-
sels are, " on an average, upwards of five weeks on
their passage from the place of capture to Sierra
Leone, occasioning a loss of the captured slaves
amounting to from one-sixth to one-half of the whole
number, while the survivors are generally landed in
a miserable state of weakness and debility."*
* Sierra Leone Report, 1830, p. 4.
184 THE SLAVE TRADE.
I have not adverted to Rio de Janeiro, or the Ha-
vana, on this head, because there are very few cap-
tures on the American side of the Atlantic, and when
captures do occur, the time consumed in the passage
to either of these ports is little, if at all, more than
what would have been required for completing the
voyage.
But it appears to be demonstrated, by evidence
which cannot be impugned, that the loss after cap-
ture on the African side of the Atlantic varies from
one-sixth to one-half of the whole number.
Loss after Landing and in the Seasoning.
The last head of mortality is that which occurs
after landing from the slave-vessel, and in the sea-
soning.
We are here again obliged to go back for infor-
mation to the evidence at the end of the last century :
but in this branch of the subject, so far as can be as-
certained, there has been no improvement; on the
contrary, the slaves are now subjected to greater
hardships, in their being landed and concealed as
smuggled goods, than they were in former times,
when a slave-vessel entered the ports of Rio Janeiro
and Havana as a fair trader, and openly disposed of
her cargo.
Mr. Falconbridge, whose evidence has already
been largely quoted, tells us, that, on being landed,
the negroes are sold, sometimes by what is termed a
MORTALITY AFTER LANDING. 185
scramble; "but previous thereto," lie adds, "the
sick or refuse slaves, of which there are frequently
many, are usually conveyed on shore, and sold at a
tavern by public auction. These, in general, are
purchased by the Jews and surgeons, but chiefly upon
speculation, at so low a price as five or six dollars
a- head.
" I was informed," he says, " by a Mulatto woman,
that she purchased a sick slave at Grenada upon spe-
culation^ for the small sum of one dollar, as the poor
wretch was apparently dying of the flux. It seldom
happens that any who are carried ashore in the ema-
ciated state to which they are generally reduced by
that disorder long survive their landing-. I once saw
sixteen conveyed on shore, and sold in the foregoing
manner, the whole of whom died before I left the
island, which was within a short time after." Va-
rious are the deceptions made use of in the disposal
of the sick slaves, and many of these such as must
excite in every humane mind the liveliest sensations
of horror. I have been well informed that a Liver-
pool captain boasted of his having cheated some Jews
by the following stratagem : " A lot of slaves afflicted
with the flux, being about to be landed for sale, he
directed the surgeon to .....
Thus prepared, they were landed, and
taken to the accustomed place of sale, where, being
unable to stand, unless for a very short time, they are
usually permitted to sit. The Jews, when they ex-
amine them, oblige them to stand up
186 THE SLAVE TRADE.
and when they do not perceive
this appearance, they consider it as a symptom of
recovery. In the present instance, such an appear-
ance being prevented, the bargain was struck, and
they were accordingly sold. But it was not long
before a discovery ensued. The excruciating pain,
which the prevention occasioned, not being to be borne
by the poor wretches, was removed, and the deluded
purchasers were speedily convinced of the imposi-
tion."*
In the report of the African Institution for 1818,
the case of the Joaquim, a Portuguese slave-vessel,
is noticed ; and Lieutenant Eicke, after stating the
wretched condition of the slaves at and subsequent
to the time of capture, says, •' That between the nine-
teenth and twenty-fourth day of their being landed,
thirteen more died, notwithstanding good provisions,
medical aid, and kind treatment, and thirty more
died between the 24th of February and 16th instant ;
all occasioned, as he in his conscience is firmly per-
suaded, by the cruel and inhuman treatment of the
Portuguese owners ; that more than 100 of them
were at the time of their landing just like skeletons
covered with skin, and moving by slow machinery,
hardly maintaining the appearance of animated
human beings. That the remainder of them were all
enervated, and in a sickly state." *
In a report from the Sierra Leone Commissioners,
* Falconbridge, p. 33.
t Afr. Inst. Report, 1818, p. 28.
MORTALITY AFTER LANDING. 187
I find the following passage : — Unfortunately their
sufferings do not terminate here, for the ill effects of
their privations and hardships, during their detention
on board the slave vessels, continue to be felt long
after the cause that produced them has ceased.
In proof of this, we beg to refer to the returns of
the Mixed Courts, which show in the case of .the
Portuguese vessel " Uniao," that besides 112 out of
361 slaves having died prior to, 35 died after eman-
cipation (but before it was possible to have them re-
gistered), owing to the wretched state to which they
had been reduced by dysentery and small-pox.
In the General Return of Liberated Africans (Ap-
pendix), it is stated of the same slaves, that the total
number which died of small- pox after landing was
55, of whom 40 were men, five women, eight boys,
and two girls. That this is not an isolated fact is
shown by the returns from the villages of Leopold
and Waterloo (Appendix A. 6 and 7). By the first
of these it appears, that of 73 children received at
Leopold in 1822, 54 died during the year ; and that
of 243 children received in 1825, 58 died in that
year, which mortality is accounted for in the return
as arising " from the debilitated state in which they
were received from the slave vessels."
By the return from the village of Waterloo, it ap-
pears that of 221 of different ages, who were received
in 1822, 72 died in the same year, of whom 26 were
men, 6 women, and 40 children ; and the explana-
tory remark is, " that the deaths are not to be ascribed
o
188 THE SLAVE TRADE.
to local circumstance, but to the deplorably emaciated
state in which the men, women, and children were
when sent to the village, having been afflicted with a
dysentery which proved incurable."
In addition to these facts, it is stated by Mr.
Reffell, chief superintendent, in his reply to the
queries which were addressed to him, as well as by
Mr. Cole, assistant chief superintendent, in his evi-
dence (Appendix B. 9 and 10), as their opinion, that
even in vessels where there has been no infectious
disease, full one-half, on an average, arrive " in a sick
or debilitated and weak state."
In an official medical report as to the health of
the liberated Africans at the Gambia, of date 31st of
December, 1833, and drawn up by Mr. Foulis, Assist-
ant-Surgeon of the Royal African Corps, and Dr.
James Donovan, Acting Colonial Surgeon, it is
stated that the greater part of those who are weak
and emaciated on arrival soon afterwards die ; many,
after a longer or shorter residence, fall into the same
state, linger, and also perish from causes not very
dissimilar. For this mortality, the medical board
assigned, as probable causes, the long confinement in
slave-houses previous to embarkation, want of clean-
liness and ventilation while on board the slave-ships,
alterations in dress, food, and habits, and, not the
least, change of climate. These act directly, simul-
taneously, and banefully on the system in a very
great number of instances. But when the sad re-
collection of perpetual expatriation, the lacerated
MORTALITY AFTER LANDING. 189
feelings of kindred and friendship, the rude vio-
lation of all the sacred and social endearments of
country and relationship, the degrading anticipation
of endless unmitigated bondage are added to these,
they act still more injuriously on the constitution,
although exerted through the medium of mind.
The moral and physical combination of such ex-
traordinary circumstances, concentrated with such
fearful intensity, conjointly creates disease in such
a redoubtable shape, as to induce a belief that
nothing similar has yet appeared in the annals of
physic."*
Mr. Rankin, in his work on Sierra Leone, says,f
" To the King's Yards I paid frequent visits, and
found an interest awakened on behalf of the people.
Of the women, many were despatched to the hospi-
tal at Kissey, victims to raging fevers. Others had
become insane. I was informed that insanity is the
frequent fate of the women captives, and that it
chiefly comes upon such as at first exhibit most
intellectual development, and greatest liveliness of
disposition. Instances were pointed out to me.
The women sustain their bodily sufferings with
more silent fortitude than the men, and seldom
destroy themselves ; but they brood more over
their misfortunes, until the sense of them is lost in
madness."!
*„ Records of the Colonial Office for 1833.
f Vol. ii. p. 124. t Ibid.
o 2
190 THE SLAVE TRADE.
Dr. Cullen,* in his letter to Lord Glenelg, men-
tions the following case : " About, the beginning of
1834, a small schooner (I think the name was the
Duqueza cle Braganza) was captured by one of Her
British Majesty's cruisers, and brought into Rio de
Janeiro, having on board between 300 and 400 Afri-
cans, mostly children ; these poor creatures had suf-
fered much from their lono- confinement in such a
small vessel, and it is believed a great many had died
on the passage. By the humanity of the late Admiral
Sir Michael Seymour they were taken on shore, and
properly cared for, otherwise the mortality amongst
them after landing must have been greater than it
was." He then says, that they were adjudged to be
free. At the time of the sentence of the Court
" they were reduced by deaths to 288, all of whom
were sent to the house of correction, to work for the
Brazilian government. I called at this house of
correction eight days after their arrival there, when
seven more had died, and there were then thirty-five
sick, confined in a small room, lying on the floor,
* Dr. Cullen also writes, that, about the same time, a British
cruiser, the Raleigh, Captain Quin, brought in a slaver, the Rio
da Plata, with about 400 Africans on board, who were landed,
and a guard placed over them; and that, " a few nights after
they were put ashore, the guard was surprised in the middle of
the night by a band of fellows pretending to be justices of the
peace, who carried off 200 of the negroes, and next day no traces
of them could be found. Those that remained were taken to the
house of correction, and disposed of in the Brazilian fashion. 1 "
1 Class A (Further Series), 1837, p. 91.
MORTALITY AFTER LANDING. 191
without bed or covering of any kind, with their
heads to the wall and their feet towards the centre,
leaving a narrow passage between the rows. The
same day I saw about 100 of these children in an
apartment on the ground-floor, sitting all round on
their heels, after the fashion of the country, and
looking most miserable. On the November follow-
ing I again visited the house of correction, and
learned that out of the 288, sent there in June, 107
had died, and a great many more were sick."*
In the letter from Havana, dated in 1838, from
which I have already quoted, the following account
is given : " In the cool of the evening Ave made a
visit to the bazaar. A newly imported cargo of 220
human beings was here exposed for sale. They
were crouched down upon their forms around a large
room : during a visit of more than an hour that w r e
were there not a word was uttered by one of them.
On entering the room the eyes of all were turned
towards us, as if to read in our countenances their fate ;
they were all nearly naked, being but slightly clad in
a light check shirt, upon which was a mark upon
the breast ; with a few exceptions they were but skin
and bone, too weak to support their languid forms ;
they were reclining on the floor, their backs resting
against the wall. When a purchaser came they
were motioned to stand, which they obeyed, though
with apparent pain ; a few were old and g-rey ; but
the greater proportion were mere children, of from
_ * Class A (Further Series), 1837, p. 91.
192 THE SLAVE TRADE.
ten to thirteen or fifteen years of age ; when they
stood their legs looked as thin as reeds, and hardly
capable of supporting the skeletons of their wasted
forms. The keeper informed us they were of several
distinct tribes, and that they did not understand one
another ; this was apparent from the formation of the
head. While we were there, five little boys and
girls were selected and bought to go into the interior:
no regard is paid to relationship, and, once sepa-
rated, they never meet again ! We left the tienda,
and, turning through the gateway, we saw some who
were lying under the shade of the plantain, whose
appearance told that they, at least, would be libe-
rated from bondage by death. They were those who
had suffered most during the voyage, — their situation
was most melancholy. I offered to one the un-
tasted bowl of cocoa-nut milk I was about drinking,
— she motioned it away with a look which, even
from a negress, was expressive of thankfulness, and
which seemed to say how unused she was to such
kindness."
The Quarterly Review (vol. xxx.) contains an
article on Mengin's ' Histoire de l'Egypte,'* in
which the reviewer, speaking of Ismael Pacha's
expedition to the south, says, " The hopes of the
Pacha, however, were greatly disappointed in these
black troops (captured in Soudan.) They were
* Histoire de l'Egypte par Felix Mengin, 1823. — Quarterly
Review, vol. xxx. p. 491.
MORTALITY AFTER LANDING. 193
strong, able-bodied men, and not averse from being
taught ; but Avhen attacked by disease, which soon
broke out in the camp, they died like sheep infected
with the rot. The medical men ascribe the mor-
tality to moral rather than physical causes ; it
appeared in numerous instances, that having been
snatched away from their homes and families they
were even anxious to get rid of life, and such was
the dreadful mortality that ensued, that, out of 20,000
of these unfortunate men, 3,000 did not remain alive
at the end of two years."
Dr. Bowring has stated to me, that the negroes
which have been conveyed into Egypt " suffer much
from nostalgia, and, when they have been gathered
together into regiments, the passionate desire to re-
turn home frequently produced a languishing malady,
of which they die in large numbers. The mortality
among the slaves in Egypt is frightful, — when the
epidemical plague visits the country, they are swept
away in immense multitudes, and they are the
earliest victims of almost every other domineering
disease. I have heard it estimated that five or six
years are sufficient to carry off a generation of
slaves, at the end of which time the whole has to be
replenished. This is one of the causes of their low
market-value. When they marry, their descendants
seldom live ; in fact, the laws of nature seem to repel
the establishment of hereditary slavery."
But it is needless to multiply instances on this
head ; and I shall only further notice a few of the
194 THE SLAVE TRADE.
authorities for the amount of the mortality after
landing, and in the seasoning.
Mr. Pitt, in the debate on the Slave Trade, in
1791, made the following observation — " The evi-
dence before the House, as to this point (the mor-
tality,) was perfectly clear; for it would be found in
that dreadful catalogue of deaths in consequence of
the seasoning and the middle passage, which the
House had been condemned to look into, that onc-
haif die."
Mr. Wilberforce, in his letter of 1807, (page 98,)
says; " The survivors were landed in such a diseased
state, that 4^ per cent, of the whole number imported
were estimated to die in the short interval between
the arrival of the ship and the sale of the cargo,
probably not more than a fortnight ; and, after the
slaves had passed into the hands of the planters, the
numbers which perished from the effects of the
voyage were allowed to be very considerable." It
ought not to be forgotten, that Pitt and Wilberforce
are speaking of a period when the Slave Trade was
legal, and the Slave Carrying Act in operation.
What then may be the increase of this mortality,
now that the trade is clandestine, and the slaves
packed on board of the " clippers," like " bales of
goods ?'.'
The Due de Broglie, when addressing the Cham-
ber of Peers on this subject, in March 1822, made
the following remark — " And it is a well-known
fact, that a fourth, or even a th ird, of the cargo gene-
MORTALITY AFTER LANDING. 195
rally perishes either on ship -board, or soon after the
landing, from the diseases incident to the voyage."* ;
In the debate of 1791, Mr. Stanley (then agent
for the islands, and advocating the continuance of the
Slave Trade) said, speaking of the negroes — " As
to their treatment in the West Indies, he was himself
witness that it was in general highly indulgent and
humane," and yet " lie confessed that one-half,
very frequently, died in the seasoning."
I have now, in the discharge of a most painful
duty, brought under review a complication of human
misery and suffering, which I may venture to say has
no parallel ; but, before concluding this branclfof the
case, it may be proper to exhibit, in a summary man-
ner, the amount of negro mortality, consequent on
the Slave Trade.
Summary.
1st. The loss incident to the seizure, march to the
coast, and detention there.
Newton (p. 98) is of opinion, that the captives
reserved for sale, are fewer than the slain.
Mr. Miles (p. 98) stated to the Committee in
1790, that in one of the " Skirmishes" for slaves,
" above 60,000 men" were destroyed.
Bosnian narrates, that in two of these skirmishes
" above 100,000 men were killed ;'' and Mr. De-
vaynes has said, that in one of these skirmishes
* Afr. Inst. Report, Ap. 2, No. 16, 1823.
196 THE SLAVE TRADE.
'< 60,000 lost their lives."* And Denham (p. 80)
narrates, that in five marauding excursions, " 20,000,
at least," were slaughtered, and 16,000 sent into
slavery ; and he gives another instance, where " pro-
bably 6,000" were slaughtered, in procuring 3,000
slaves.
On the route to the coast, we may cite the autho-
rity of Park, Denham, &c. ; and M. Mendez (p. 113)
estimates the loss on this head to amount to five-
twelfths of the whole.
For the mortality occasioned by detention before
embarkation, we have the authority of Frazer, Park,
Leonard, Landers, and Bailey.
From these authorities, we are fairly entitled to
assume that from the sources — seizure, march, and
detention, for every slave embarked, one life is sa-
crificed.
2ndly. The loss from the middle passage ap-
pears to be not less than 25 per cent., or one fourth
of the number embarked. For this there is conclu-
sive evidence. The witnesses have no assignable
motive for exaggeration ; they are men holding
public situations, of unimpeachable veracity, and
with the best opportunities of forming a correct esti-
mate.
The Rev. John Newton had, himself, been for
many years a Slave Trader, and speaks of what he
* It is obvious that these very large numbers must be received
with considerable qualification. There can be no doubt, however,
that the slaughter was great.
SUMMARY OF MORTALITY. 197
saw. The Slave Trade was then legal, and the ves-
sels employed were usually large and commodious,
and very different from the American clippers now in
use. He rates the loss during the middle passage at
25 per cent. Captain Ramsay had commanded one
of Pier Majesty's cruisers, employed in suppressing
the Slave Trade, had taken many slavers, and could
not be ignorant of the state of the captured cargoes.
His estimate is 33 per cent.
Slave-trading vessels are continually passing under
the eye of the Governor of Cape Coast Castle. His
attention has been constantly kept alive to the sub-
ject, and feAv men have had such opportunities of
arriving at the real truth. Mr. Maclean's estimate
is 33 per cent.
Commodore Owen reports that which came to his
knowledge while he was employed by Government
in surveying the eastern coast of Africa. His esti-
mate is 50 per cent. This excess, as compared with
the others, is accounted for by the additional length
of the voyage round the Cape of Good Hope.
If, after such testimony, there were room for hesi-
tation, it must be removed by witnesses of a very
different kind. The Spanish slave-merchants of
Monte Video, it is fair to presume, are well ac-
quainted with the usual rate of mortality in their
slave-vessels ; and we may give them credit for not
acting contrary to their own interests ; so confident
are they that, at least, one-third will perish, that they
providently incur the expense of sending out that
198 THE SLAVE TRADE.
amount of surplus, for the purpose (in their own
words) " of covering the deaths on the voyage."
I should be justified in taking the average of
these authorities, which would he 34 per cent ; but,
as it is my wish to be assuredly within the mark, I
will state the mortality from the middle passage at
twenty-five per cent.
In the same spirit I will take no notice of the
mortality after capture, which, says the report of the
Parliamentary Committee, amounts to from one-sixth
to one-half.
3dly. As to the loss after landing, and in the
seasoning.
Under this head, we have, among others, two au-
thorities which require particular attention ; one of
them referring to the time when the Slave Trade
was legal, the other to a recent date, and both of
them of unexceptionable character. Mr. Stanley,
a West India Agent, arguing for the continuance of
the Slave Trade, and lauding the treatment of the
negroes, confesses that one-half frequently die in the
seasoning. The other, the report of the Medical
Officers appointed to investigate the state of the
liberated Africans at the Gambia, describes a large
proportion of them as labouring under disease,
" nothing equal to which has been known hitherto in
the annals of physic." If such be their state when they
fall into the hands of the British, are treated by them
with kindness, and are relieved from their most
frightful apprehensions, may we not suppose that
SUMMARY OF MORTALITY, 199
their state is still more miserable, and the mortality
still greater, when they are landed clandestinely at
Cuba, and know that they are doomed to interminable
bondage ?
Upon the strength and authority of these facts, I
might fairly estimate the loss under this head at one-
third ; but I think I cannot err, on the side of exag-
geration, in setting it down at twenty per cent, or
one-fifth of the number landed.
Nor does the mortality stop here. In slave coun-
tries, but more especially where the Slave Trade
prevails, there is, invariably, a great diminution of
human life ; the numbers annually born fall greatly
below the numbers which perish. It would not be
difficult to prove, that in the last fifty years there has
been, in this way, a waste of millions of lives ; but
as this view of the subject would involve the horrors
of slavery, as well as of the Slave Trade, I shall ab-
stain from adding anything on this head to the cata-
logue of mortality which I have already given.
Our calculation may thus be brought into a narrow
compass : —
Of 1000 victims to the Slave Trade,
One-half perish in the seizure, march,
and detention .... 500
Of 500 consequently embarked, —
One-fourth, or 25 per cent, perish in the
Middle Passage .... 125
200 THE SLAVE TRADE.
Of the remaining 375 landed, one-fifth,
or 20 per cent., perish in the seasoning 75
Total loss .... 700
So that 300 negroes only, or three-tenths of the
whole number of victims, remain alive at the end of
a year after their deportation ; and the number of
lives sacrificed by the system, bears to the number of
slaves available to the planter, the proportion of seven
to three.
Then applying this calculation to the number an-
nually landed at Brazil, Cuba, &c, which I have
rated at 150,000
Of these one-fifth die in the seasoning 30,000
Leaving available to the Planter . 120,000
The number of lives annually sacrificed,
being in the proportion of seven to
three* 280,000
* This amount may be verified in the following manner : —
Taking the annual victims at ... 400,000
One-half perish before embarkation . . . 200,000
Embarked . \ . . . 200,000
One-fourth in the Middle Passage . . . 50,000
Landed 150,000
One-fifth in the Seasoning .... 30,000
Available . . . . . . 120,000
SUMMARY OF MORTALITY. 201
Annual victims of Christian Slave
Trade 400,000
Proceeding in like manner with the Moham-
medan Slave Trade, we find the numbers to be
Exported by the Imaum of Muscat 30,000
Carried across the Desert . . 20,000
50,000
Loss by seizure, march, and detention* 50,000
Annual victims of Mohammedan Slave
Trade . . . . . 100,000
Christian . 400,000
Annual loss to Africa 500,000
It is impossible for any one to reach this result,
without suspecting, as well as hoping, that it must
be an exaggeration ; and yet there are those who
think that this is too low an estimate, f
I have not, however, assumed any fact, without
* It may be objected, tbat the loss arising from detention at
the Mohammedan Slave markets is not so great as that which
takes place in the barracoons in the Transatlantic trade, but, on
the other hand, the march is much more destructive to human
life ; we may therefore fairly calculate that in the three items of
seizure, march, and detention, the average mortality is equal to
that in the former case, which we estimated at " one life sacri-
ficed for every slave embarked."
f Mr. Rankin says : —
" The old and new Calebar, the Bonney, Whydah, and the Gal-
linas, contribute an inexhaustible supply for the French islands of
the West Indies, Rio Janeiro, Havana, and the Brazils, where,
202 THE SLAVE TRADE.
giving 1 the data on wliicli it rests ; neither have I
extracted from those data any immoderate inference.
I think that the reader, on going over the calcula-
tion, will perceive that I have, in almost every in-
stance, abated the deduction which might with jus-
tice have been made. If, then, we are to put confi-
dence in the authorities which I have emoted, (most
of them official,) we cannot avoid the conclusion, — ter-
rible as it is, — that the Slave Trade annually dooms
to the horrors of slavery (Christian) 120,000
(Mohammedan) . . 50,000
170,000
And murders (Christian) 280,000
(Mohammedan) 50,000
330,000
*500,000
notwithstanding every opposition and hinderance from the British
cruisers, one hundred thousand are supposed to arrive in safety
annually ; five times that number having been lost by capture or
death. Death thins the cargoes in various modes ; suicide de-
stroys many ; and many are thrown overboard at the close of the
voyage ; for, as a duty of ten dollars is set by the Brazilian Go-
vernment upon each slave upon landing, such as seem unlikely to
survive, or to bring a price sufficiently high to cover this custom-
house tax, are purposely drowned before entering port. Those
only escape these wholesale murders, who will probably recover
health and flesh when removed to the fattening pens of the slave-
farmer, a man who contracts to feed up the skeletons to a market-
able appearance." Vol. ii. p. 71.
* It may perhaps be observed that this result disagrees with
FAILURE OF EFFORTS, ETC. 203
CHAPTER III.
FAILURE OF EFFORTS ALREADY MADE FOR SUP-
PRESSION OF THE SLAVE TRADE.
It is then but too manifest that the efforts already
made for the suppression of the Slave Trade have not
accomplished their benevolent object.
The people of England take a more lively and in-
tense interest in this than perhaps in any other fo-
reign subject. The Government, whether in the hands
of the one party or the other, cannot be accused of
having, for a long series of years, been wanting either
in zeal or exertion for its suppression. Millions of
money and multitudes of lives have been sacrificed ;
and, in return for all, we have only the afflicting
conviction, that the Slave Trade is as far as ever from
being suppressed. Nay, I am afraid the fact is not
to be disputed, that while we have thus been endea-
that given in the former editions of this work. The fact is, on
revising my calculation, I found I had adopted an erroneous
method of computing the per-centage, which made my result fal
considerably short of the reality: this estimate, enormous as
it is, I might have still further augmented, for I find (as stated
in note, page 61) that the annual Mohammedan export from
the Eastern coast is now ascertained to amount to 50,000, being
20,000 more than I had rated it ; and as we assume an equal
number perish in the seizure, march, and detention, 40,000 might
fairly be added to the amount above fixed. But enough, and
more than enough, has been proved to establish my argu-
ment.
204 THE SLAVE TRADE.
vowing to extinguish the traffic, it has actually
doubled in amount.
In the debate of 2d April, 1792, Mr. Fox rated
the Slave Trade at 80,000 annually : he says, " I
think the least disreputable way of accounting for
the supply of slaves, is to represent them as having
been convicted of crimes by legal authority. What
does the House think is the whole number of these
convicts exported annually from Africa ? 80,000."
In the same debate Mr. Pitt observed, " I know of
no evil that ever has existed, nor can imagine any
evil to exist, worse than the tearing of 80,000 per-
sons annually from their native land, by a combina-
tion of the most civilised nations in the most enlight-
ened quarter of the globe." The late Zachary Ma-
caulay, than whom the African has had no better
friend, told me a few days before his death, that
upon the most accurate investigation he was able to
make as to the extent of the Slave Trade, he had
come to the conclusion that it was 70,000 annually,
fifty years ago. Twenty years ago the African Insti-
tution reported to the Duke of Wellington that it
was 70,000. We will assume, then, that the num-
ber at the commencement of the discussion was
70,000 negroes annually transported from Africa.
There is evidence before the Parliamentary Com-
mittees to show that about one-third was for the
British islands, and one-third for St. Domingo :
so that, strictly speaking, if the Slave Trade of other
countries had been stationary, they ought only at the
utmost to import 25,000 ; but I have already proved
FAILURE OF EFFORTS, ETC. 205
that the number annually landed in Cuba and Brazil,
&c, is 150,000, being more than double the whole
draught upon Africa, including the countries where
it had ceased when the Slave Trade controversy
began. Twice as many human beings are now its
victims as when Wilberforce and Clarkson entered
upon their noble task ; and each individual of this
increased number, in addition to the horrors which
were endured in former times, has to suffer from
being cribbed up in a narrower space, and on board
a vessel, where accommodation is sacrificed to speed.
Painful as this is, it becomes still more distressing
if it shall appear that our present system has not
failed by mischance, from want of energy, or from
want of expenditure, but that the system itself is er-
roneous, and must necessarily be attended with dis-
appointment.
Hitherto we have effected no other change than a
change in the flag under which the trade is carried
on. It was stated by our ambassador at Paris, to the
French minister, in 1824 (I speak from memory),
that the French flag covered the villains of all nations.
For some years afterwards the Spanish flag was gene-
rally used. Now, Portugal sells her flag, and the
greater part of the trade is carried on under it. Her
governors openly sell, at a fixed price, the use of
Portuguese papers and flags.
So grave an accusation ought not to be made
without stating some of the authorities on which it
is grounded. In a Parliamentary paper on the
p 2
206 THE SLAVE TRADE.
subject of the Slave Trade, presented in 1823, Sir
Charles McCarthy states in his letter of the 19th
June 1822,* that " the case of the ' Conde de Villa
Flor,' seized near Bissao, fully establishes that
Signor Andrade, the governor, had shipped a number
of slaves on his own account." Sir Charles further
states that " he received repeated reports of the
governors of Bissao and Cacheo having full car-
goes of slaves in irons ready for all purchasers ; and
that the traffic is carried on openly at the Cape de
Verd Islands, St. Thomas, and Prince's." This
statement is confirmed by " Lieutenant Hagan, of
Her Majesty's brig Thistle, who informed him that
the traffic in slaves was carried on at Bissao and
Cacheo in the most open manner, under the sanction
of the governor, the latter of whom is the principal
dealer in slaves."
The practice of 1822 has continued to the present
time. On the 3d March, 1838, Lord Palmerston,
in a spirited note, states to the Portuguese Minister,
" that the Portuguese flag is lent, with the conniv-
ance of Portuguese authorities, to serve as a protec-
tion for all the miscreants of every other nation in
the world, who may choose to engage in such base
pursuits."!
The charge thus made extends only to the lending
of the flag of Portugal : it might have gone farther.
In an enclosure in a letter from Lord Palmerston to
* Papers, Slave Trade, 11th July, 1823.
t Class B. (Further Series), 1837, p. 29, presented 1838.
FAILURE OF EFFORTS, ETC. 207
our Ambassador at Lisbon, dated 30th April, 1838,
it appears that " the Governor of Angola has esta-
blished an impost or fee of 700,000 reis to be paid
to him for every vessel which embarks slaves from
thence, it being understood that upon payment of
the above-mentioned sum, no impediment to the
illicit trade shall be interposed by the governor, nor
any further risk be incurred by the persons engaged
in the trade."* Nor is this all. In the same docu-
ment we find that the governor, not content with
lending and letting out the flag of Portugal, has set
up as a slave-trader himself ; " sending from Angola,
for his own account, a shipment of slaves, sixty in
number, which he has consigned to a notorious slave-
dealer of the name of Vicente, at Rio de Janeiro."!
It is very truly added, that these violations of the
treaties " form but a small portion of the offences of
this kind constantly committed by Portuguese sub-
jects, both in and out of authority." £
When Portugal shall have been persuaded or
compelled to desist from this insulting violation of
treaty, it is but too probable that Brazil will step
into her place. We find it stated in a despatch from
* Class B. (Further Series), 183*7, p. 35. t Ibid.
t It appears from the last Parliamentary papers, that " the
Diligente was captured by the Brisk while under Portuguese co-
lours, and furnished with Portuguese papers, from the Portuguese
Consul-General at Cadiz, who, in this instance, seems to have
been at no pains to conceal the disgraceful part which he took." —
Class A. (Further Series), 1838-9, p. 11.
208 THE SLAVE TRADE.
Her Majesty's Commissioners at Rio de Janeiro to
Lord Palmerston, of date the 17th November, 1837,*
that " The change in the Brazilian Government
which took place on the 19th September has had
this important consequence in respect to the Slave
Trade, that while the late Government appeared to
wish to put down the traffic, as matter of principle,
and of compact with Great Britain, the present Go-
vernment, as far as it is represented by Senor Vas-
concellos (Minister of Justice, and provisionally
Minister for the empire) , has proclaimed the traffic
to be indispensable to the country ; has released those
concerned in it who were under prosecution ; and set at
nought the engagement with Great Britain on this
head." And the British Consul at Pernambuco
writes to Lord Palmerston, of date 15th February,
1838, " The editor of the Jornal do Commercio
declares, that this important subject has already
passed the Senate, and that there is every probability
it will be made law in the next Session of the Legis-
lature, to annul the enactment of 17th November,
1831, which prohibits the Slave Trade in Brazil
under severe penalties."! When p Brazil shall be
induced to surrender the traffic, it is not improbable
that it will be transferred to Buenos Ayres, or one
of the many remaining flags of South America : then
to Texas ; and when we shall have dealt with all
these, and shall have wrung from them a reluctant
* Class A. (Further Series), 1837, p. 80.
t Class B. (Further Series), 1837, p. 54.
FAILURE OF EFFORTS, ETC. 209
engagement to renounce the iniquity, we shall still
have to deal with the United States of North
America.
How long, it may he asked, will it take before we
have succeeded in gaining from the whole world a
concurrence in the provisions of the existing treaty
with Spain ? We began our negotiations with Por-
tugal about thirty years ago ; and in what state are
they now ? By a despatch from Lord Howard de
Walden, our ambassador at Lisbon, to Lord Palmer -
stoii; of date 25th February, 1838, w T e are informed
that Viscount de Sa da Bandeira, the Portuguese
minister, having been urged to proceed with the ne-
gotiations, replied, " That he would do so as soon as
he had settled a treaty with Spain for the navigation
of the Douro, the negotiation of which occupied his
whole time."*
To touch upon one only of the many difficulties
which lie in the way of a universal confederacy for
putting down the Slave Trade, I ask, how shall we
get the consent of North America to the article
yielding the right of search ? She has told us, in
the most peremptory terms, that she will never assent
to it ; and it should be remembered that this confe-
deracy must either be universally binding or it is of
no avail. It will avail us little that ninety-nine
doors are closed, if one remains open. To that
one outlet the whole Slave Trade of Africa will
rush.
* Class B. (Further Series), 1837, p. 30.
210 THE SLAVE TRADE.
Does any one suppose that even in the space of
half a century we shall have arrived at one universal
combination of all countries for the suppression of
the Slave Trade ? And a delay of fifty years, at
the present rate- of the traffic, implies, at the very
least, the slaughter of eleven millions of mankind.
But let us suppose this combination to have been
effected, and that all nations consent to the four
leading articles of the Spanish Treaty. When that
is done, it will be unavailing.
In the first place, during the three years which
have elapsed since the treaty with Spain, the Slave
Trade has been carried on by the Spaniards, at least
to as great an extent as formerly. On the 2d Ja-
nuary, 1836, the Commissioners at Sierra Leone say,
" There is nothing in the experience of the past year
to show that the Slave Trade with Spain has, in any
degree, diminished."*
The Commissioners at the Havana say, " Never
has the Slave Trade at the Havana reached such a
disgraceful pitch as during the year 1835. "t I
* Class A. 1835, p. 9.
t Ibid. p. 206. On the 19th January, 1839, Her Majesty's
Commissioners thus addressed the Captain-General of Cuba : " We
regret to feel it a duty incumbent upon us to call your Excellency's
attention to the alarmingly increasing importation of Bozal negroes
into this island;" and on the 20th Feb. 1839, they reported to
Lord Palmerston " that there continues every appearance of the
trade being persevered in with the same vigour as during the past
year." And on the 20th March following, they state that " there
is every appearance of its being still further extended." — Class A.
(Further Series), 1838-9, pp. 115, 119, 121.
FAILURE OF EFFORTS, ETC. 211
could corroborate this statement, that there is no
diminution in the Spanish Slave Trade, by a variety
of letters. One gentleman, upon whose sources of
information and accuracy I can entirely rely, says, in
a letter dated September, 1836, " The Slave Trade,
which was thought to be dead here some years ago,
has still a mighty being, and stalks over the island
in all its pristine audacity." Another, of date
November, 1836, says, " Article First of the late
Treaty between England and Spain states, ' The
Slave Trade is hereby declared, on the part of Spain,
to be henceforward totally and finally abolished in
all parts of the world.' In answer to this, we assert
that the Slave Trade carried on by the Spaniards is
more brisk than ever. In December, 1836, a gentle-
man, detained a month at St. Jago de Cuba, wit-
nessed the arrival of five slave cargoes from Africa."
But it may be said that this arises from the facility
with which the Portuguese flag is obtained, and that
when Portugal, and all other powers, shall have con-
sented to the Spanish Treaty, this mode of evasion
will have ceased. It is perfectly true that the Por-
tuguese flag is obtained with the greatest facility at
a very moderate price. At the Cape de Verd Islands,
at the River Cacheo, at St. Thomas's, at Prince's, and
at Angola, the Portuguese flag may be easily and
cheaply purchased. But notwithstanding, we find
by the last parliamentary papers, that out of the
twenty-seven vessels condemned at Sierra Leone,
eight were under the Spanish flag ; and of the
212 THE SLAVE TRADE.
seventy-two vessels which left the port of Havana
for the coast of Africa, in 1837, no fewer than nine-
teen at least were Spanish* The slave-traders
surely did not think that the Spanish Treaty was a
death-blow to the trade, or they would not have neg-
lected the precaution of purchasing, at a very easy
price, the protection afforded by the flag of Portugal.
They have their choice of the Spanish flag, attended
by all the dangers supposed to arise from the Spanish
Treaty, or the Portuguese flag, which is not liable
to these dangers ; and, for the sake of saving a very
trivial sum, they prefer the former. t
* Class A. (Further Series), 1837, p. 68.
t The Commissioners at Sierra Leone, of date 12th Nov., 1838,
make the following observation : — " We have before alluded to
the practice adopted by Cuba vessels, of carrying both Portuguese
and Spanish papers, the former of which are made use of when
they are boarded and searched by Her Majesty's cruizers— and
with the latter they clear out from Havana," and again re-enter
that port in ballast."— Class A. (Further Series), 1838-9, p. 68.—
I observe in the same papers a curious description of the changes
of names and flags which take place in the trade. In Feb., 1833,
the French ship " Paqucbot Bordelais" became the Spanish
" Europa;" under this name she made a number of voyages till Sept.,
1834, when she became the Spanish ship " Alerta," under which
name she sailed for Africa. In Feb., 1836, she returned, ami, as
the " Europa," again sailed for Africa, returning as the Portu-
guese " Ducpicsa di Braganza" in January, 1837. She subse-
quently became the Spanish ship " Provisional," after which, be-
ing too old lor the African trade, the plan of building a new ves-
.1 to navigate under her papers was formed, and with them the
American ship Venus became the Portuguese " Duqucsa di Bra-
gan/ii." Class B (Further Series), p. 32, L839. Sec note, p. 43-
« The Venus."
FAILURE OF EFFORTS, ETC. 213
But there is another mode of measuring the im-
portance which the slave-traders attach to the Spa-
nish Treaty. The Commissioners, in their Report
of 1836, after stating that the first effect of the
treaty was to arrest the Slave Trade, add, that this
alarm soon wore aw T ay, and " now the only visible
effect of the reported new treaty is an increased rate
of premium out and home, with an augmented price
ol negroes.
The Spanish Treaty has been for some time a
topic of continual congratulation and complacency ;
and there are many who think that if we could but
induce Portugal and other countries to follow the
example of Spain, there would be an end of the
Slave Trade. A case occurs in the papers pre-
sented to Parliament in 1838, which throws a
strong light on the real efficacy of the Spanish
Treaty ; and, though I can give but a scanty out-
line of it here, it deserves particular attention. The
Vencedora, a Spanish vessel, officered by Spaniards,
having lately returned from a trading voyage to
Africa, came into the port of Cadiz, bound for Porto
Rico. At Cadiz she took in forty-nine passengers,
and proceeded on her way. The passengers suffered
considerable annoyance from the effluvia proceeding
from the lower parts of the ship. By this, and by
other circumstances, some vague suspicion seems to
have been engendered. Leaving Porto Rico, the
vessel proceeded towards Cuba ; on her way thither
* Class A. 1835, p. 207.
214 THE SLAVE TRADE.
she fell in with the Ringdove, Captain Nixon." The
captain of the Vencedora denied that he had negroes
on board ; but the mate of the Ringdove insisted on
pursuing his search, and in the forepeak of the ves-
sel, closed up from light or air, were found twenty-
six negroes :* " most of them were young, from ten
years old upwards."
They could not speak one word of Spanish, unless
it be true, which the Spanish witnesses labour hard
to prove, that one of them was once heard to use the
word " Seiior." From these circumstances, from the
stench perceived by the passengers after leaving Ca-
diz ; from the fact of three iron coppers being found,
and large quantities of rice and Indian corn having
daily been dressed in them ; from the care taken to
debar the passengers from all access to those parts
of the ship where they were found ; and from the
testimony, through an interpreter, of the negroes
themselves, " who all declared, most solemnly, that
they had never been in another vessel, and swore to
it, after the manner of their country ;" from all these
circumstances it is clear (however incredible the atro-
city) that these wretches had been shipped at Congo,
in Africa, had been carried across the Atlantic to
Cadiz, again across the Atlantic to Porto Rico, and
were, when taken, in the progress of a third voyage.
* They appeared to be of recent importation, had no other
clothing than a piece of cloth tied round their loins, their heads
were shaven, and some of them were in a sad state of emaciation.
Class A. 1837, p. 40.
FAILURE OF EFFORTS, ETC. 215
No record exists of the number originally shipped,
nor of those who were so happy as to perish by the
way, nor of the extent of misery undergone by those
who endured a voyage from Africa to Europe, and
from Europe to America, of not less than 6000 miles,
pining in their narrow, loathsome, and sultry prison,
for want of air, and light, and water. These particu-
lars will never be known in this world; but who will
deny that the English captain is justified in calling-
it a case of " utter barbarity ?" He might have
added, of " utter perfidy." In a private letter,
he says, — " The Vencedora took her wretched
cargo round by Cadiz (can you conceive such bar-
barity ?), and there got armed with government au-
thority as a packet, wearing the royal colours and
pendant : they (the slavers) will be liberated, and
I may be prosecuted." The fact of her having
slaves on board must have been known to the cus-
tom-house authorities at Cadiz.
However, thanks to the Spanish Treaty, the ship
is captured at last, and the Spanish authorities will
be, of course, as eager as ourselves to punish the
villain who has thus defied her decrees. Captain
Nixon took his prize to the Havana, and she was
tried before the Mixed Commission Court. The
captain of the slaver set up the impudent defence —
First, that these naked, filthy, shaven, emaciated
creatures were " passengers," and, next, that they
were " parcels of goods from Porto Rico."
The court, by the casting vote of the Spanish urn-
216 THE SLAVE TRADE.
pire, found this false and flimsy pretext valid, acquitted
the slaver, restored the vessel, and condemned the
innocent negroes to slavery, while Captain Nixon is
exposed to heavy damages for doing his duty !* The
captain of the Vencedora is triumphant, and, in a
complaint which he made relating* to certain articles
which, as he alleges, are missing, closes the scene by a
high-flown address to the court, on " the faith of
treaties," " the sacred rights of property and national
decorum," and " the outraged honour of the respected
flag of England !"
Worse than all is the fact that this case has been
taken as a precedent, and already another vessel, the
Vigilante, has been liberated on the strength of this
decision.
Had I fabricated a case to show the perfidy of the
Spanish authorities, and the barefaced evasions which
are sufficient, in Lord Palmerston's words, "to reduce
the treaty to mere waste paper," I could scarcely have
produced one so much to the purpose;!
* It appears that Captain Nixon was sentenced to pay 600/. for
detaining the Vencedora. Class A. 183S-9, p. 95.
t Her Majesty's judge at Havana, of date 2nd July, 1S3S,
thus addresses Lord Palmerston : — " I have reason to helieve that
the system has heen carried on to a very great extent of making
Porto Rico a depot for slaves, and thence smuggling them into
the Havana, in smaller vessels ; and the Commissioners at Havana,
of date 21st April, 1838, say that in this way " an extensive and
increasing trade appears to be carried on, which, unless cheeked,
may probably counteract all our efforts for the suppression of this
unhappy traffic" Class A. 1838-9, pp. 113—95.
FAILURE OF EFFORTS, ETC. 217
I am compelled to go further. It may be pre-
tended that it was only by accident that the slaver,
while she remained at Cadiz, escaped the vigilance
of the custom-house officers, and by a second fortu-
nate accident that she obtained permission to bear
the royal pendant ; but can it also be ascribed to acci-
dent that the two persons selected by the Spanish
Government as commissioner and arbitrator should
have acted throughout as if their proper business was
to defend the slave-trader, and defeat the treaty ? It
would seem that, while hardly any evidence is strong
enough to convict a slaver, no pretext is too miser-
able for his defence. For example, the Vencedora
is declared to be " wrongfully detained," while the
General Laborde, " a well-known and fully-equipped
slaver," is liberated "because the wife and children
of the supercargo were on board."*
I observe, in a despatch from Her Majesty's judge
to Lord Palmerston, of date 17th August, 1838, that
he says, in speaking of the conduct of the Captain-
general, " It is impossible to come to any other con-
clusion than that his Excellency is prepared to lend
the shelter of his authority to the traffic as much as
any of his predecessors ;" and he alludes to the ic fees
and perquisites" received by the Spanish authorities
as the real hindrance to the discontinuance of the
trade, f
Upon the whole, I can arrive at no other conclu-
* Class A. 1837, p. 91.
t Class A. 1838-9, p. 119=
218 THE SLAVE TRADE.
sion than that the Spanish Treaty, as interpreted by
the Spanish judges, is an impudent fraud; and that
those who shall be credulous enough to rely upon it
for the full attainment of our object will be fatally
deceived.
Thus, then, stands the argument : we shall never
obtain the concurrence of all the powers to the pro-
visions of the Spanish Treaty ; and if we get it, we
shall find it not worth having. But even assuming
that those insurmountable obstacles have been over-
come, and that the Spanish Treaty, improved and
rendered more stringent, becomes the law of the
civilised world : it will still appeal* that this treaty
will not accomplish our object. Another step must
be taken ; and the next step will be to make slave -
trading Piracy, punishable with death.
Once more, then, we shall have to tread the tedious
round of negotiation. To say nothing of the difficulty
we shall find in inducing Portugal to adopt the
greater measure, when she has so long refused to
take the minor step ; and nothing of the difficult y
of persuading Brazil to advance, when she has
exhibited unequivocal symptoms of a disposition
to retreat ; nor of the reluctance of Spain (who
thinks she has conceded too much) to make still
further concessions — to say nothing of all these,
France stands in our way. She has declared that,
by her constitution, it cannot be made piracy.
I am afraid that there is not the remotest probabi-
lity of inducing all nations to concur in so strong a
FAILURE OF EFFORTS, ETC. 219
measure as that of stigmatising the Slave Trade as
piracy.
But we will suppose all these difficulties removed ;
a victory, in imagination, has been obtained over the
pride of North America, the cupidity of Portugal, the
lawlessness of Texas, and the constitution of France.
Let it be granted that the Spanish Treaty, with an
article for piracy, has become universal. I maintain
that the Slave Trade, even then, will not be put down.
Three nations have already tried the experiment
of declaring the Slave Trade to be piracy — Brazil,
North America, and England. Brazilian subjects,
from the time of passing the law, have been conti-
nually engaged in the Slave Trade; indeed we are
informed that the whole population of certain dis-
tricts are concerned in it, and not one has suffered
under the law of piracy. In 1820, a law was passed
by the legislature of North America, declaring that
if any citizen of that country shall be engaged in the
Slave Trade, " such citizen or person shall be ad-
judged a pirate, and on conviction thereof, before the
Circuit Court of the United States, shall suffer
death." It will not be denied that American citizens
have been largely engaged in the traffic ; but I have
yet to learn that even one capital conviction has taken
place during the eighteen years that have elapsed
since the law was passed*
* Major M'Gregorhas stated, in the letter to which I have be-
fore referred, that a vessel, with 160 Africans on board, had been
wrecked at the Bahamas ; and he says, " This pretended Portu-
Q
220 THE SLAVE TRADE.
Great Britain furnishes a still more striking illus-
tration of the inefficacy of such a law. For ten years
the Slave Trade prevailed at the Mauritius, to use
the words of Captain Moresby before the Committee
of the House of Commons, " as plain as the sun at
noonday." Many were taken in the very act, and
yet no conviction, I believe, took place. With these
examples before me, I am not so sanguine as some
other gentlemen appear to be, as to the efficacy of a
law declaring the Slave Trade piracy, even if it were
universally adopted. I fear that such a law would be
a dead letter, unless, at all events, Ave had the bond
fide and cordial co-operation of the colonists.* Were
we able to obtain this in our own dominions ? Our
naval officers acted 'with their usual energy, on the
coast of the Mauritius. When General Hall was
governor there, and when Mr. Edward Byam was the
head of the police, everything possible was clone to
suppress the traffic, and to bring the criminals to
justice. No persons could act with more meritorious
fidelity (and, I grieve to say, poorly have they been
guese vessel was fitted out at Baltimore, United States, having
been formerly a pilot-boat, called the Washington. The super-
cargo was an American citizen from Baltimore." See also the
Report of the Commissioners, Class B. 1837, p. J 25.
* How far we are from having this co-operation, appears from
the following :■ — Lord Palmerston, of date 13th June, 1838, says
to Sir G. Villiers, that " No reliance can be placed upon any of
the subordinate authorities of the Spanish Government, either in
the colonies, or even in Spain itself, for the due execution of the
laws of Spain and of the treaties for suppression of the Slave
Trade." Class B. 1839, p. 22.
FAILURE OF EFFORTS, ETC. 221
rewarded by the Home Government) : it became,
however, but too evident that the law was unavailing.
The populace would not betray the slave-trader, the
agent of the police would not seize him ; if captured
by our officers, the prisons would not hold him, and
the courts would not convict him. General Hall was
obliged to resort to the strong expedient of sending
offenders of this kind to England, for trial at the Old
Bailey, on the ground that no conviction could be
obtained on the island. It is clear, then, that the
law making Slave Trade piracy will be unavailing,
without you obtain the concurrence of the colonists
in Cuba and Brazil ; and who is so extravagant as to
indulge the hope that this will ever be attained ?
But now I will make a supposition, still more
Utopian than any of the preceding. All nations
shall have acceded to the Spanish Treaty, and that
treaty shall be rendered more effective. They shall
have linked to it the article of piracy ; the whole
shall have been clenched, by the cordial concurrence
of the authorities at home, and the populace in the
colonies. With all this, we shall be once more
defeated and baffled by contraband trade.
The power which will overcome our efforts is the
extraordinary profit of the slave-trader. It is, I be-
lieve, an axiom at the Custom-house, that no illicit
trade can be suppressed, where the profits exceed
30 per cent.
I will prove that the profits of the slave-trader
are nearly five times that amount. " Of the enor-
q 2
222 THE SLAVE TRADE.
mous profits of the Slave Trade," says Commissioner
Macleay, " the most correct idea will be formed by
taking an example. The last vessel condemned by
the Mixed Commission was the Firm." Pie gives
the cost of —
Dollars.
Her cargo . . 28,000
Provisions, ammunition,
wear and tear, &c. . 10,600
Wages . . . 13,400
Total expense . . 52,000
Total product . . 145,000*
There 'was a clear profit on the human cargo of
this vessel of 18,600/., or just 180 per cent. A
still more striking case is that of the Venus, whose
departure from Havana is thus noticed by the Com-
missioner, in his despatch of Aug. 22, 1838 : — " The
Venus is destined for Mozambique, and is arranged
to bring as many as 1,000 negroes, in which «ase, it
is said, she would clear to the speculators from
100,000 to 200,000 dollars, her cost price being
estimated at 50,000, and the expenses of cargo and
slaves at another 50,000 dollars." Her return is
thus noticed in a private letter, dated Havana, Jan.
24, 1839 : — " The Venus is at this moment in the
port, having landed upwards of 850 slaves on the
coasl a few miles south of Havana — she was intended
* Pail.J'apcr, No. 381, p. 37.
FAILURE OF EFFORTS, ETC. 223
to carry 1,000, but the 'approach of some cruisers
determined her captain to start without his comple-
ment." My informant thus calculates the profits of
the adventure : — " The price of slaves at Havana is
stated to be 70/. per head for prime slaves; but sup-
posing the cargo of the Venus did not entirely consist
of prime slaves, and that the average value did not
exceed 50/.,
850 slaves, at 50/. each £42,500
Allowing for expenses
of voyage . £2,500
Cost of 850 slaves on
the coast at 4/. per lid. 3,400
5,900
Net profit £36,600"
Will any one who knows the state of Cuba and
Brazil pretend that this is not enough to shut the
mouth of the informer, to arrest the arm of the police,
to blind the eyes of the magistrates, and to open the
doors of the prison ?
Lord Howard de Walden, in a despatch to the
Duke of Wellington, dated 26th February, 1835,
speaks of a vessel just about to sail from that port
(Lisbon), on a slave-trading voyage. It shows the
kind of reliance which we are justified in placing on
the professions of that country, pledged twenty years
ago " to co-operate with His Britannic Majesty in
the cause of humanity and justice," and "to extend
the blessings of peaceful industry and innocent com-
224 THE SLAVE TRADE.
merce to Africa ;" when, in her own capital, under
the guns of her own forts, in the face of day, 1 and
before the eyes of our ambassador, a vessel is per-
mitted, without molestation, to embark in the Slave
Trade ; but it also exhibits the prodigious gains of
the man-merchant.
Lord Howard de Walden says, " The subject of
her departure and destination have become quite no-
torious, and the sum expected to be cleared by
the parties concerned in the enterprise is put at
40,000/."*
Mr. Maclean (Governor at Cape Coast Castle), in
a letter addressed to me, in May, 1838, says, " A
prime slave on that part of the coast with which I
* Class B. 1836, p. 27. The Commisioners.at Havana, of date
18th Sept., 1838, say to Lord Palmerston, — " The ' General Espar-
tero ' has made, it is said, a remarkably successful voyage, so that
the owner has cleared by the speculation upwards of 70,000 dol-
lars ;" and of date Jan. 19, 1839, they say—" With regard to the
ship " Venus,' otherwise ' Duquesa di Braganza,' we should state
that the original cost, we understand, was 30,000 dollars; and
that the fitting-out and expenses of every kind for the voyage,
including the value of the return cargo, was estimated at 60,000
more, say altogether 100,000 dollars. The number of negroes
brought back, as has been before stated, was 860, and they are
said to have been sold at 340 dollars per head, producing the
sum of nearly 300,000 dollars, of which, therefore, two-thirds
was net profit. So long as such returns can be effected, we fear
that no efforts whatever will be effectual in suppressing the traffic,
and certainly not while the dealers have only to meet such a Bystem
of corruption as pervades every department of the government oi
the island."— Class A. (Further Series,) 1838-9. p. 109.
FAILURE OF EFFORTS, ETC. 225
have most knowledge, costs about 50 dollars in goods,
or about from 25 to 30 dollars in money, including
prime cost and charges : the same slave will sell in
Cuba for 350 dollars readily ; but from this large
profit must be deducted freight, insurance, commis-
sion, cost of feeding during the middle passage, and
incidental charges, which will reduce the net profit
to, I should say, 200 dollars on each prime slave ;
and this must be still further reduced, to make up for
casualties, to, perhaps, 150 dollars per head."
It is remarkable that this calculation by Mr. Mac-
lean almost exactly corresponds with that stated by
the Sierra Leone Commissioners, giving for the out-
lay of 100 dollars a return of 280 dollars.
Once more, then, I must declare my conviction
that the Trade will never be suppressed by the
system hitherto pursued.* You will be defeated by
its enormous gains. You may throw impediments in
the way of these miscreants ; you may augment their
peril ; you may reduce their profits ; but enough,
and more than enough, will remain to baffle all your
efforts.
* Mr. Maclean, in a letter dated 16th October, 1838, says,
" My neighbour (as 1 may call him), De Souza, at Whydah, still
carries on an extensive Slave Trade; judging by the great num-
ber of vessels consigned to him, he must ship a vast number of
slaves annually. He declares, and with truth, that all the slave
treaties signed during the last 25 years have never caused him to
export one slave fewer than he would have done otherwise."
226
CHAPTER IV.
SUPERSTITIONS AND CRUELTIES OF THE AFRICANS.
The vast amount of human suffering, and the waste
of human life, which I have described, form, after
all, but a part of the evil ; and there remains a still
more dreadful feature in the condition of Africa : —
the Slave Trade stands as a barrier, excluding every-
thing which can soften, or enlighten, or civilize,
or elevate the people of that vast continent. It sup-
presses all other trade, creates endless insecurity,
kindles perpetual war, banishes commerce, know-
ledge, social improvement, and, above all, Christi-
anity, from one quarter of the globe, and from a
hundred millions of mankind.
The Slave Trade is the great cause of the depo-
pulation and degradation of Africa, not merely from
its keeping the people in a state of disorganization,
but from its poisoning the whole policy of the coun-
try. Direct discouragement is thrown upon agri-
culture. A slave-dealing chief, who neglects his
own plantation, will not suffer his subjects to acquire
wealth from independent sources, and the quantity
of land which any one is permitted to plant is
therefore narrowly limited. It appears to them to
lie their present interest to encourage the slave
trader at the expense of the honest merchant, and
SUPERSTITIONS, ETC., OF THE AFRICANS. 227
the latter is kept waiting for weeks, while a slaver
is getting her cargo.
It is not very easy to make out an accurate account
of the condition of Africa previously to the com-
merce in slaves, hecause Europeans had then so
little intercourse with that country. Some proofs,
however, exist, that it was in a more flourishing
state than we find it to be. It is remarkable that the
geographers Nubiensis in the 12th century, and Leo
Africanus in the 16th,* state that, in their time, the
people between the Senegal and Gambia never made
war on each other, but employed themselves in keep-
ing their herds, or in tilling the ground. When
Sir J. Hawkins visited Africa in 1562 — 7, with
intent to seize the people (a practice which had been
strongly reprobated by Queen Elizabeth), he found
the land well cultivated, bearing plenty of grain and
fruit, and the towns "prettily" laid out.
Bosnian, about 1700, writes that it was the early
European settlers who first sowed dissensions among
the natives of Africa, for the sake of purchasing their
prisoners of war. Benezet quotes Win. Smith, who
was sent by the African Company, in 1726, to visit
their settlements, and who stated, from the testimony
of a factor who had YivM ten years in the country,
that the discerning natives accounted it their great-
est unhappiness ever to have been visited by Euro-
peans.
Dupuis, in his journey up to Coomassie, in 1819,
'* Quoted by Benezet, p. 43.
228 THE SLAVE TRADE.
gives the following description of the country then
recently laid waste by the King of Ashantee :* —
" From the Praa, southward, the progress of the
sword down to the margin of the sea may be traced
by mouldering ruins, desolated plantations, and.
osseous relics; such are the traits of negro ferocity.
The inhabitants, whether Assins or Fantees, whose
youth and beauty exempted them from slaughter on
the spot, were only reserved to grace a triumph
in the metropolis of their conquerors, where they
were again subject to a scrutiny, which finally
awarded the destiny of sacrifice or bondage ; few or
none being left behind to mourn over their slaugh-
tered friends, or the catastrophe of their unhappy
country."
Traces are yet to be seen of cultivation which has
once existed. Thus Ashmun, after a voyage which
he made in 1822, for 200 miles to the south-east-
ward from Cape Montserado, remarks,! — " One
century ago a great part of this line of coast was
populous, cleared of trees, and under cultivation : it
is now covered with a dense and almost continuous
forest. This is almost wholly a second growth, com-
monly distinguished from the original by the pro-
fusion of brambles and brushwood which abounds
union g the larger trees, and renders the woods en-
tirely impervious, even to the natives, until opened
by the bill-hook."
* Dupuis, " Journal of a Residence in Ashantee," p. 33.
t " Life of Ashmun," p. 141.
SUPERSTITIONS, ETC., OF THE AFRICANS. 229
Speaking of the St. Paul's, he says,* " Along this
beautiful river were formerly scattered, in Africa's
better days, inumerable native hamlets ; and, until
within the last 20 years, nearly the whole river-bord,
for one or two miles back, was under that slight
cultivation which obtains among the natives of this
country. But the population has been wasted by the
rage for trading in slaves, with which the constant
presence of slaving vessels, and the introduction of
foreign luxuries, has inspired them. The south bank
of this river, and all the intervening country, and the
Montserado, have been from this cause nearly deso-
lated of inhabitants."
In a letter which I have recently received from
Mr. Clarkson, he observes that the country of Bif-
feche on the Senegal, which was once well inhabited,
was, in a few years, entirely depopulated by the
Moorish slave-hunters ; and Mr. Rendall, in his
papers, draws a strong contrast between the state
of a district enjoying security of person and pro-
perty, and when under the terrors of a slave trade.
He states that he was at St. Louis on the Senegal
from 1813 to 1817. At that time the place was in
the possession of the English, and the surrounding
population were led to believe that the Slave Trade
was irrevocably abolished : they, in consequence, be-
took themselves to cultivating the land, and every
available piece of ground was under tillage. The
people passed from one village to another without
arms and without fear, and everything wore an air
* " Life of Ashmun," p. 233.
230 THE SLAVE TRADE.
of contentment. Mr. Rendall was there again after
the place had been made over to France, " and then,"
he says, " the Slave Trade had revived in all its hor-
rors ; vessels were lying in the river to receive car-
goes of human flesh ; the country was laid waste,
not a vestige of cultivation was to be seen, and no
one dared to leave the limits of his village without
the most ample means of protection."
One apology for the Slave Trade has been sug-
gested : that if there were not a market for the sale
of the victims they would be put to death. I am,
however, about to show that the countries in which
the Slave Trade chiefly prevails are precisely those
in which human sacrifices are carried to the greatest
excess.
It is possible, indeed, that, on the first check to
the Slave Trade, the barbarous chiefs might be
tempted to kill the captives who" were no longer
saleable. The possibility should be viewed, in
order that the evil may be guarded against by stipu-
lations in our treaties ; but, in fact, it does not
appear very likely that such a horrible consequence
would ensue : it has not done so in some instances
with which we are acquainted. Mr. Jiutcher, the
missionary, speaks, in 1811, of the captives being
immediately sent to till the ground, on the occasion
of the check put to the Slave Trade in the l\io
Nunez ;* and Mr. Macbrair says, that the chiefs
along the Gambia are now regretting the slaves
whom they have formerly sold, as they find that their
v Sixth Rep. Mr. Inst., App., p. 1GJ.
SUPERSTITIONS, ETC., OF THE AFRICANS. 231
labour would be a source of greater wealth than the
price received for their persons. But the most satis-
factory proof that such murders are not inevitable, is
the fact, that they did not ensue in the English set-
tlements at the period of the abolition. The natives
around Sierra Leone made up their quarrels, and
suspended their wars without outrage or bloodshed.*
There may be a danger of riveting the chains of
domestic slavery, but there seems to be no great fear
that, with reasonable precautions, any dreadful
massacre should occur.
In the present state of things, human life and
human suffering are very lightly regarded ; and so
great are the cruelties and abominations now perpe-
trated that even injudicious interference could hardly
render the condition of Africa worse than it now is :
— any change must be an improvement. Laird tells us
that the inhabitants of the delta of the Niger were so
demoralized and degraded, that he could not have
conceived such a people to exist, within a few miles
of ports which British ships had frequented for a
century. f At Calebar, skulls were seen " kicked
about in every direction." Captain Fawckner, who
was detained in Benin, in great distress in 1825,
says, " near the palace of the King of Benin are
several fetish places,! the depositories of the usual
* Rep. of Cora, for Afr. Inst., p. 28. t Laird, p. 277.
I The " fetish " is a word for any being or object supposed to
possess supernatural power: It is applied therefore to the demons
whom the Pagans worship, and to the charms with which they
protect themselves against their power.
232 THE SLAVE TRADE.
objects of worship :" " many unfortunate slaves are
sacrificed in front of these temples."* After reading
this account of the sufferings of our countryman,
whose vessel being stranded upon that coast was
plundered, the crew made prisoners, and their lives
only spared by a singular succession of favourable
omens, it is curious to read in an author two cen-
turies earlier that the people of Benin " will not
do injury to any, especially to strangers ;"t and
that they were " a gentle, loving people ;" and to
hear from Reynolds, that they found more sincere
proofs of love and good will from the natives than
from the Spaniards and Portuguese,! even though
they had relieved the latter from the greatest misery
such has been the change of 200 years !
At Dahomey, Mr. Giraud says, he was at the
King's fete in 1836, when " about 5 or 600 of his
subjects were sacrificed for his recreation. Some
were decapitated, and others were precipitated from
a lofty fortress, and transfixed on bayonets prepared
to receive them ; all this merely for amusement. "§
The Ashantees, at the same time that they were
vigorous slave-traders, || were notorious for their
* Fawckner, pp. 83, 84. t Purchas's Africa, 1601.
\ Benezet's Account of Africa, p. 59.
§ Colonization Herald, July, 1837.
|| The Ashantcc slave-traders are so numerous and notorious,
that the people of Moronho, a town 16 or 17 days' journey from
CoomaBBie, have no doors to their houses, hut enter J>yu ladder
^SUPERSTITIONS, ETC., OF THE AFRICANS. 233
human sacrifices and bloody rites. Messrs. Bowditch,
Tedlie, and Hutchinson,* were employed on a mission
to Coomassie, the capital of Ashantee, in 1817: on
their very first entrance into the city, while waiting
in the street for leave to attend the King, Mr. Bow-
ditch says, iC Our attention was forced to a most
inhuman spectacle, which they paraded before us for
some minutes : it was a man whom they were tor-
menting previous to sacrifice. His hands w T ere
pinioned behind him, a knife was passed through
his cheeks, to which his lips were noosed like the
figure of 8 ; one ear was cut off and carried before
him ; the other hung to his head by a small bit of
skin ; there were several gashes in his back, and a
knife was thrust under each shoulder-blade ; he was
led with a cord passed through his nose, by men
disfigured with immense caps of shaggy black skins,
and drums beat before him."'f
Many slaves are killed at their various "customs,"
(the rites practised on the death of individuals of any
consideration:)! "the decease of a person is announced
by a discharge of musketry proportioned to his rank,
through the roof, as some security against their assaults. Bow-
ditch, p. 171.
* Whatever may have been the views of the few travellers who
have visited Ashantee, and however our envoys may have differed
with respect to the policy to be pursued towards it, they agree
perfectly in describing it as the theatre of the most revolting
horrors. Thus Mr. Dupuis entirely confirms the account of Mr.
Bowditch as to the scenes continually occurring.
t Bowditch, p. 33. % Bowditch, p. 282.
234 THE SLAVE TRADE.
or the wealth of his family. In an instant yon see
a crowd of slaves burst from the house and run
towards the bush, flattering themselves that the
hindmost, or those surprised in the house, will
furnish the human victims for sacrifice, if they
can but secrete themselves till the custom is over."
One or two slaves are then sacrificed at the door
of the house. A scene of this kind took place
at the death of the mother of one of the principal
chiefs, August 2nd, 1817, of which Mr. Bowditcli
was an eye-Avitness, though it was considered by no
means a great custom.* " We walked," he says, " to
Assafoo at twelve o'clock: the vultures were hovering
round two headless trunks scarcely cold." Then
came troops of women, uttering dismal lamentations.
" The crowd was overbearing; horns, drums, and
muskets, yells and screeches, invaded our hearing
with as many horrors as were crowded on our sight.
Now and then a victim was hurried by, generally at
full speed ; the uncouth dress, and the exulting coun-
tenances of those who surrounded them, likening
them to as many fiends." He describes many other
barbaric ceremonies ; finally, the drums announced
the sacrifice of the victims. f " The executioners
wrangled and struggled for the office; and the in-
difference with which the first poor creature looked
on, in the torture he was from the knife passed
through his cheeks, was remarkable. The right
* Bowditch,p.283. t Hutchinson, in BowditcVs Travels, p. 287.
SUPERSTITIONS, ETC., OF THE AFRICANS. 235
hand of the victim was then lopped off, he was thrown
down, and his head was sawed rather than cut off; it
was cruelly prolonged, I will not say wilfully. Twelve
more were dragged forward, but we forced our way
through the crowd and retired to our quarters.
Other sacrifices, principally female, were made in the
bush where the body was buried. It is usual to " wet
the grave" with the blood of a freeman of respecta-
bility. All the retainers of the family being present,
a slave from behind stuns one of these freemen with
a violent blow, followed by a deep gash in the back
part of the neck, and he is roiled in on the top of
the body of the deceased, and the grave instantly
filled up. A sort of carnival, varied by firing,
singing, drinking, and dancing, was kept up in
Assafoo for several days, the chiefs generally visiting-
it every evening.
On the death of a king, all the customs which have
been made for the subjects who have died during
his reign, must be simultaneously repeated by the
families, (the human sacrifices as well as the ca-
rousals and pageantry,) to amplify that for the
monarch : which is also solemnized, independently, at
the same time, in every excess of extravagance and
barbarity. The brothers, sons, and nephews of the
king, affecting temporary insanity, burst forth with
their muskets, and fire promiscuously amongst the
crowd ; even a man of rank, if they meet him, is
their victim : nor is their murder of him or any other,
on such an occasion, visited or prevented ; the scene
R
236 THE SLAVE TRADE.
can hardly be imagined. The king's Ocras, who
will be mentioned presently, are all murdered on his
tomb, to the number of 100 or more ; and women in
abundance. I was assured by several, that the
custom for Sai Quamine was repeated weekly for
three months, and that 200 slaves were sacrificed,
and 25 barrels of powder fired each time. But the
custom for the king's mother, the regent of the kingdom
during the invasion of Fantee, is the most celebrated.
The king himself devoted 3000 victims, (upAvards of
2000 of whom were Fantee prisoners,) and 25
barrels of powder. Five of the largest places fur-
nished 100 victims, and 20 barrels of powder each ;
and most of the smaller towns 10 victims, and two
barrels of powder each. These human sacrifices are
frequent and ordinary, to water the graves of the
kings.
Mr. Dupuis, who was at Coomassie a year or two
later, gives a similar account of the bloody customs
of Ashantee ; he tells us that before the -king set
forth on his campaign against Gam an, he began by
sacrificing 32 male, and 18 female victims, as an
expiatoiy offering to his Gods, but the answers from
the priests being deemed by the council as still
devoid of inspiration, the king was induced to make
a custom at the sepulchres of his ancestors, where
many hundreds bled. On the conclusion of the war
2000 prisoners were slaughtered over the royal death
stool, in honour of the shades of departed kings and
heroes.
SUPERSTITIONS, ETC., OF THE AFRICANS. 237
The king's own account was not exaggerated, for
two respectable Moslems at Coomassie, in describing
to Mr. Dupuis the scenes of the Gaman war, de-
clared, that they had witnessed the massacre of
10,000 old men, women, and children, besides
numbers of chieftains, who were put to death by
tortures the most revolting to humanity.
It appeared that the king rather concealed his
human sacrifices while Dupuis was in Coomasie, for
two reasons ; the one, that they concerned the mis-
sion, as the king had been imploring his idols to
incline the heart of the great king of England to-
wards him ; the other, that it might not be reported
that the sovereign of Ashantee delighted in spilling
human blood ; which, it was known, gave as much
offence to white men as it did to Moslems.*
I subjoin another case of atrocity abridged like-
wise from Dupuis : ct On the ] 3th the Adai cus-
tom was ushered in by the discharge of fire-arms,
and the sound of many barbarous instruments.
Numbers of victims were offered up to the gods,
although secretly, in the palace and the houses of the
chieftains. The city itself exhibited the most de-
plorable solitude, and the few who were courageous
enough to appear in the streets, fled at the approach
of a captain, and barricaded the doors of their huts,
to avoid the danger of being shot or sacrificed."
" The following day a similar train of horrors suc-
ceeded, and still I was left in suspense, for my own
* Dupuis, p. 140.
R2
238 THE SLAVE TRADE.
linguists and messengers were not hardy enough to
knock at the royal gate. They dreaded, as they
said, the fetish men, who guarded the avenue, and
who alone were suffered to enjoy free ingress."
From the Moslems he learned further that seventy
men and women had been put to death the day
previous in the palace only, beside those who were
sacrificed in private houses or in the forest. Most of
these unhappy beings were Gaman prisoners, who
had been purposely reserved as an offering to the
gods ; the others were criminals or disobedient
slaves.
I find another instance, not the less touching be-
cause more simple, and more easily conceived by the
mind than these hecatombs, and not less clearly
proving the actual co-existence of a keen pursuit of
the " trade,'' with a remorseless waste of the lives of
its objects.
" March 2nd, 1837. — I learned from the king," says
the Rev. Mr, Fox, " that they brought 350 Foulahs
from Foolokolong, besides 100 they killed. I asked
him how many of these Foulahs were at Madina,
(having myself seen a few in the town,) when he
answered only twelve, and immediately called an
interesting little Foulah boy of about six years of
age, who came trembling and weeping as he ap-
proached. His father, I learned, was killed in the
attack upon Foolokolong. I therefore ventured to
ask his sable majesty to give the boy to me ; but no,
he said he could not, and why ! Because, horrid to
SUPERSTITIONS, ETC., OF THE AFRICANS. 239
relate, he had dedicated this innocent and unoffend-
ing child to a greegree, or rather to the devil; and
who will doubtless try some cruel means be put to
death, previous to the intended attackupon Kimming-
ton, to ensure success ! Mantamba, I am told, is rather
nervous in his language against Koi, because he
does not sacrifice one of his own children ; and hesi-
tated not to say that it was because he did not do this,
that the attack upon Dunkaseen was not more suc-
cessful. I would fain have rescued this poor little
fatherless boy from the unmerciful grasp of these
wild barbarians, by giving a handsome present for
his redemption ; but even had I succeeded, another
would doubtless have immediately been substituted in
his stead."
After the account of the home practice of the
Ashantees, we cannot be surprised at the barbarities
they exercised upon the British prisoners who fell
into their hands during the war in which we were
engaged with them. After the battle in which Sir
Charles M'Carthy was unfortunately killed, Mr.
Williams, an officer who was taken prisoner, said,
that whenever the Ashantees beheaded a prisoner,
they made him sit on one side of the large war
drum, while they took off their victim's head on the
other.* Mr. Jones, a merchant and captain of the
militia, having received five wounds, was imme-
diately sacrificed ; this, however, would have hap-
pened to him, had he been an Ashantee ; for any
* Major Rickett's Narrative of the Ashantee War, p. 84.
240 THE SLAVE TRADE.
one who has received five wounds in an action,
whether friend or foe, is devoted to the fetish. It is
said that the Ashantee chiefs ate Sir Charles
McCarthy's heart,* that they might imbibe his valour ;
and that his dried flesh and bones were divided
amongst them as charms to inspire courage.
In the Landers' narrative, instances of similar
atrocity are to be met with. We are informed^ that
at Jenna it is the custom for two of the governor's
wives to quit the world on the same day with him-
self; and that the governor of that place, himself of
necessity goes down to the grave on the demise of his
sovereign, the king of Yarriba.
Mr. Laird;"; speaks of the decease of an aged chief
while he was at Fundali, who left 15 wives; and he
tells us that on the night this man was to be buried,
the king w T ent to the women's apartment, and se-
lected one, who Avas to be hung, in order to ac-
company her husband to the next world.
Of the other barbarous customs of Africa, the
continual appeal to the ordeal of " red water," or
poison, is one of the worst. This, too, also shows
the very low rate at which human life is valued.
At Iddah Mr. 01diield§ saw a procession of the
wives of the king's son, just deceased, who were
proceeding to establish their innocence of his death
* Mnjor Rickett'* Narrative of the Ashantee War, p. 105.
+ Lander, vol i., p. 92, 93.
I Laird, vol. i., p. 225.
§ Oldfield, vol. ii., p. 178.
SUPERSTITIONS, ETC., OF THE AFRICANS. 241
by drinking poison ; and lie says, that " out of sixty
of these poor infatuated wretches, thirty-one died."
I shall close this gloomy catalogue of barbarities
with an account, extracted from Lander,* of some of
the atrocities perpetrated in Badagry. He says,
"The murder of a slave is not considered even in
the light of a misdemeanour among them. Badagry
being a general mart for the sale of slaves to the
European merchants, it not unfrequently happens
that the market is overstocked with human beings ; in
which case their maintenance devolves on the govern-
ment. Thieves and other offenders, together with the
remnant of unpurchased slaves who are not drowned
along with their companions in misfortune and
misery, are reserved by them to be sacrificed to their
gods ; which horrid ceremony takes place at least
once a month. Prisoners taken in war are also
immolated, to appease the manes of the soldiers of
Adoilee slain in battle ; and of all atrocities, the man-
ner in which these wretches are slain is the most
barbarous. Each criminal being conducted to the
fetish tree, a flask of rum is given him to drink ;
whilst he is in the act of swallowing it, a fellow steals
imperceptibly behind him with a heavy club, inflicts
a violent blow on the back of the head, and, as it
often happens, dashes out his brains. The senseless
being is then taken to the fetish hut, and a calabash
or gourd having been previously got ready, the head
is severed from the trunk with an axe, and the
* Lander, vol. ii,, p. 249.
242 THE SLAVE TRADE.
smoking blood gurgles into it. "While this is in
hand, other wretches, furnished with knives, cut and
mangle the body in order to extract the heart entire
from the breast, which being done, although it be yet
warm and quivering with blood, it is presented to
the king first, and afterwards to his wives and
generals, who always attend at the celebration of
these sacrifices ; and his majesty and suite making
an incision into it with their teeth, and partaking of
the foamy blood, which is likewise offered, the heart
is exhibited to the surrounding multitude. It is then
affixed to the head of a tall spear, and with the
calabash of blood, and headless body, paraded through
the town, followed by hundreds of spearmen, and
a dense crowd of people. Whoever may express
an inclination to bite the heart or drink the blood,
has it immediately presented to him for that purpose,
the multitude dancing and singing. What remains
of the heart is flung to the dogs, and the body, cut in
pieces, is stuck on the fetish tree, where it is left till
wholly devoured by birds of prey. Besides these
butcheries, they make a grand sacrifice once a year,
under their sacred fetish tree, growing in a wood,
a few miles from the city. These are offered
to their malevolent demon or spirit of evil, quartered,
and hung on the gigantic branches of the venerable
tree, and the skulls of the victims suffered to bleach
in the sun around the trunk of it. By accident, I
had an opportunity of seeing this much talked of tree,
a day or two only after one of the yearly sacrifices —
SUPERSTITIONS, ETC., OF THE AFRICANS. 243
its enormous branches literally covered with frag-
ments of human bodies, and its majestic trunk
surrounded by irregular heaps of hideous skulls,
which had been suffered to accumulate for many
years previously. Thousands of vultures which had
been scared away by our unwelcome intrusion, were
yet hovering round and over their disgusting food,
and now and then pouncing fearlessly down upon a
half devoured armor leg. I stood as if fascinated to
the spot by the influence of a torpedo, and stupidly
gazed on the ghastly spectacle before me — the huge
branches of the fetish tree groaning under their
burden of human flesh and bones, and sluggishly
waving in consequence of the hasty retreat of the
birds of prey ; the intense and almost insufferable
heat of a vertical sun ; the intolerable odour of the
corrupt corpses ; the heaps of human heads, many
of them apparently staring at me from hollows which
had once sparkled with living eyes ; the awful still-
ness and solitude of the place, disturbed only at inter-
vals by the frightful screamings of voracious vultures,
as they flapped their sable wings almost in my face —
all tended to overpower me ; my heart sickened with-
in my bosom, — a dimness came over my eyes, an in-
expressible quivering agitated my whole frame — my
legs refused to support me ; and turning my head, I
fell senseless into the arms of Jowdie my faithful
slave.*"
The perpetual witnessing of such revolting scenes
* Lander, pp. 260—268,
244 THE SLAVE TRADE,
and the constant perpetration of such atrocious deeds,
as have been detailed in the foregoing pages, keep
the African population in a state of callous barbarity,
which can only be effectually counteracted by Christian
civilisation — to impart which to them, the recital of
such horrors may well animate our desires, and
quicken our endeavours. In the meantime, it appears
our duty to protest against them in all our official
transactions, and to make the Africans aware, that
they can only obtain the advantages of a connexion
with Europeans, by renouncing practices which out-
rage the feelings of civilised men. And, as a more ex-
tended intercourse is opening between us and them,
now is the time to establish this principle. That
many of the Africans have a regard for European
opinions, and that they are already aware that their
bloody rites are offensive to Christians, is, I think,
fully demonstrated by several facts which have been
stated in this chapter. For this reason it is that those
of them who live on coasts frequented by our traders,
have betaken to the practice of perpetrating their
sanguinary orgies under the shades of night ; for this
reason did the king of Ashantee endeavour to hide
some of his butcheries from the British Envoy, that
" he might not have to report that the sovereign of
Ashantee delighted in spilling human blood." It was
for the same cause that a friendly chief who visited
Sir Charles M'Carthy in the Ashantee war,* had
hung pieces of tartan round his war drums, to hide
* Rickc'it's Ashantee War, p. 38.
SUPERSTITIONS, ETC., OF THE AFRICANS. 245
the jaw-bones and skulls with which they were orna-
mented, " being fearful, from what he had heard of
the character of his Excellency, that they should give
offence ;" and that King Dinkera desisted from the
murder he was about to commit on the occasion of
his sister's death, on hearing that the British Govern-
ment disapproved of such practices.
As this portion of my work tends to exhibit the
state of Africa under a new and most melancholy
aspect, I did not feel justified in omitting it ; but it
was my intention and desire to make it as brief as
possible. I find myself, however, under the necessity
of extending it. I have received from the secretaries of
the Wesleyan Missionary Society the following nar-
rative, which I have somewhat abbreviated. It gives
a picture, the accuracy of w r hich no one will doubt,
seeing the quarter from which it comes, of events
which have occurred during the current year, in a
town not more than 150 miles distant from the Bri-
tish settlement of Cape Coast Castle : —
Extracts from the Letters and Journal of the Rev.
Thomas B. Freeman, JV&sleyan Missionary,
containing an account of his visit to Ashantee in
1839.
Reverend and Dear Sirs,
Ever since my arrival on this station, (Cape
Coast Castle,) I had felt deeply anxious to visit
246 THE SLAVE TRADE.
Coomassie. The tales of horror, wretchedness, and
cruelty which I had often heard respecting the Ashan-
tees wrought in my mind a constant restlessness to
commence missionary operations among them. ■
Feb. 2. — At half-past 3 p.m. I reached the town of
Mansue, and was very kindly received by the chief
and his captains.
Before I retired to rest, Gabrea (the chief) sent
me a present, consisting of a good sheep, some plan-
tains, and pine apples. His mother also sent me
some yams and plantains.
3rd, Sunday. — At 4 p.m. I preached the word of
life to the chief and his captains, and many of the
people.
Considering their ignorant condition, they behaved
very well. I do not remember that I ever witnessed
a more interesting scene than that which took place
at the close of the sermon. The sublime truths con-
cerning the mysterious plan of human redemption,
made such an impression on the minds of the chief
and his captains, that they could no longer contain
themselves, but spreading abroad their hands, and
lifting up their voices, they acknowledged the loving-
kindness of God, and declared, before many of their
people, that they would worship God ; and I verily
believe they would, if they could be watched over by
a missionary or a teacher.
Oth. — At 6£ A. M. I started from Berracoe i'oi
the river Pnih,* which I reached nine minutes
* Boosempvah of Bowditch
SUPERSTITIONS, ETC., OF THE AFRICANS. 247
before 9 a.m. The river, the largest I have yet
seen in Africa, with its thickly- wooded banks
abounding in palm treees and mimosae, presented a
beautifully picturesque scene. When the river is
at its greatest height, its depth may be about thirty
or forty feet, and its breadth about ninety yards.
Near the crossing place its bed is very rocky ; as it
was very low, I could see many large pieces] of gra-
nite above the surface of the water. The river Prah
forms the boundary between Fantee and the domi-
nions of the king of Ashantee. On the Fantee side
of the river is a small town called Prahshoo.
The whole of the Fantee country through which
I passed, from within a mile or two of Cape Coast
Castle up to the river Prah, a distance of about
eighty-five miles, is covered with luxuriant vegeta-
tion, consisting of plantains, bananas, palms, bamboos,
pines, many large forest trees, covered with climbers,
" Epiphitical Archidacece" and ferns.
Immediately before entering Quissah, I passed
over a hill of considerable height. Its soil is very
rich, consisting of a mixture of yellow loam and
clay. A spring of the most delicious water I ever
tasted, rises above half way up the hill, (from what
I could judge,) and after tumbling down its rocky
bed of granite, bubbles by the small town of Quissah.
The Assin country, though consisting of a very
rich and fertile soil, covered with luxuriant vegeta-
tion, presents one unbroken scene of desolation,*
* If this brief account of Fantee and Assin is compared with
248 THE SLAVE TRADE.
except here and there a few huts occupied by
Ashantees, whom the king sends to take care of the
path.
9th. — This morning the chief informed me that
Corintchie, the chief of Fomunnah, had sent over
for him to converse with him respecting me. Shortly
afterwards, a messenger arrived from Corintchie,
requesting me to go over and visit him, which I
immediately prepared to do. When I entered the
town, Corintchie was sitting before the front of his
house under his large umbrella, waiting to receive
me, his captains and people occupying the ground
on his right and left. After the usual compliments
on meeting, he asked me what object I had in view
in wishing to pass up to Coomassie. I told him I
had nothing to do with trade or palavers, but was
come into the country to promote the best interests
of the king of Ashantee and his people, by directing
them in the way of peace and happiness through the
preaching of the gospel. He then said he should
like to hear the gospel in his town, before I pro-
ceeded any further into the country. I hereupon
proceeded to speak to him and all present on the
being of a God, and the nature of the Christian reli-
gion. They readily gave their assent to all I said,
and Corintchie requested me to pay them a visit on
that given by Bowditch, p. 23-4, it will be perceived that the
Fantee country is rapidly improving under the fostering care oi
the local government of Cape Coast, •while the Assin country
abandoned by its rightful owners, is in ruins.
SUPERSTITIONS, ETC. OF THE AFRICANS. 249
the morrow, that they might hear more from me
concerning the Christian religion. On my remark-
ing, that as I was a minister of the gospel, I could
not prudently make them presents according to the
usual custom, it being beneath the dignity of Chris-
tianity, which is so truly excellent in itself that it
requires no recommendation except a consciousness
of its value, he answered, " We do not desire any
of the customary presents from you, but wish rather
to become acquainted with Christianity."
There were about 500 persons present.
10th, Sunday.— At 8 p. m. I again went over to
Fomunnah, to preach the word of life, followed by
the chief of Quissah.
I had a goodly number of our people with me,
who assisted in singing the praises of God.
At the conclusion of the sermon, Corintchie and
his captains said it was a " good palaver." On my
telling them that I had not laid before them a thou-
sandth part of the sublime truths contained in the
Bible, they said they should like to hear more of
them, and especially what " Yancumpon" (God)
liked, and what he disliked ; and seemed much
pleased when I told them I should be happy to preach
to them again whenever they pleased.
On the 12th, Mr. Freeman received a present from
the king of nine ackies of gold dust, (£2. 5s.,) and
he was invited to remove to Fomunnah.
19th, Tuesday. — Last night a sister of Corintchie
died, after a Ions; sickness. Her death was an-
250 THE SLAVE TRADE.
nounced by the firing of muskets, and the mourners
going about the streets. When an Ashantee of any
description dies, several of the deceased's slaves are
sacrificed. This horrible custom originates in some
shadowy ideas of a future state of existence, and in
a notion that those who depart hence stand in need
of material food, clothing, &c, the same as in the
present world ; and, consequently, as a vast number
of concubines, slaves, &c. are the chief marks of su-
periority among them here, so they will be in a future
state. Accordingly, as I walked out early in the
morning, I saw the mangled corpse of a. poor female
slave, who had been beheaded during the night, lying-
in the public street. It was partially covered with a
common mat, (made from the stem of the plantain
tree,) and as this covering is unusual, I concluded
that it was thrown over to hide it from my view. In
the course of the day I saw groups of natives dancing
round this victim of superstitious cruelty, with all
manner of frantic gestures, appearing to be in the
very zenith of their happiness.
In the evening I was informed that, as Corintchie
and his captains did not wish me to see any more
headless trunks lying in the streets, they had not
sacrificed any more persons during the day, but would
most probably do so during the night. I am happy
to say, however, that I could not ascertain that any
more sacrifices had been made. That only one per-
son was sacrificed, I believe resulted entirely from
n iy being in the town.
SUPERSTITIONS, ETC. OF THE AFRICANS. 251
27th. — I had a long conversation with some of the
natives, on the subject of the general resurrection,
and of the injury done to their country by human
sacrifices. Many of the natives seem to have an
utter dislike to this horrid custom, while others are
sunk into such a state of apathy, that they are quite
indifferent about it, though their lives, as well as
those of others, are continually in danger.
28th. — I paid Corintchie a visit, and reasoned with
him closely on the painful consequences of human
sacrifices and customs for the dead. He readily ac-
knowledged the evil, and expressed himself as ready
to do away with it, if he were at full liberty to do so,
but he " feared the king."
The only reason he could give for making customs
for the dead, was that they felt very unhappy when
they lost their relatives and friends, and were then
very glad to have recourse to drunkenness, or any-
thing which would drive gloomy thoughts from their
minds for a season.* As he thus gave me a good
opportunity of directing him to the only sure refuge
for a troubled mind, — the consolations of true reli-
gion, — I told him that God alone was able to sustain
the human mind under afflictions and bereavements.
He seemed affected with what I said to him.
* While I was staying at Fomunnah I once reproved Corint-
chie for drunkenness, when he said that the king had checked
him for it once, and since I also had done it, which made the
second reproof he had received, he would endeavour to avoid it for
the future.
S
252 THE SLAVE TRADE.
March 2d. — To-day, another human victim was
sacrificed, on account of the death of a person of
rank in the town. As I was going out of the town,
in the cool of the evening, I saw the poor creature
lying on the ground. The head was severed from
the body, and lying at a short distance from it.
Several large turkey-buzzards were feasting on the
wounds, and literally rolling the head in the dust.
This unfortunate creature appeared to be about
eighteen years of age, a strong healthy youth, who
might in all probability have lived many years longer.
As I returned into the town, I saw that they had
dragged the body to a short distance, and thrown it
into the ditch where the poor female was thrown the
other day.
On my conversing with some of the natives, con-
cerning the horrible nature of human sacrifices, they
said they themselves did not like them, and wished
that they could be done away. While the poor
creature was lying in the public street, many of the
people were looking on with the greatest indiffer-
ence ; indeed, they seem to be so familiar With these
awful and bloody scenes, that they think no more of
them, nay, they do not think so much of them,
as they would of seeing a dead sheep, dog, or
monkey.
17th. — In the afternoon I again conducted Divine
service, and preached from Matt; xix. 17, "If thou
wilt enter into life, keep the commandments." Co-
SUPERSTITIONS, ETC. OP THE AFRICANS. 253
rintchie and several of his captains were present, and
appeared much excited during the sermon, but more
especially during that part in which I explained to
them the Ten Commandments. They often stopped
me in my discourse, to ask questions ; among which
was the following : — " Is the offering a human sa-
crifice, murder ?" I answered, " It is even so ; and
you will henceforth be left without excuse, if you
still persist in that horrible practice." After I had
directed their attention to the excellence of the com-
mandments, especially the temporal and spiritual
blessings which the consecration of the Christian
Sabbath is calculated to introduce among mankind,
I proposed the following question : — " Who are the
happiest persons ? those avIio conscientiously keep
God's commandments, or those who wilfully break
them ?" They answered, without hesitation, " Those
who keep them." And I verily believe that this
answer was given in sincerity, as they appeared
deeply impressed with the solemnity of the dis-
course.
On Mr. Freeman's afterwards telling them that
he feared the delay of the king, in sending for him/
proceeded from suspicion, and " that it was his duty
to turn aside, and carry the glad tidings of salvation
to another nation, if he found them averse to re-
ceiving the truth," they seemed very much con-
cerned, and said they felt no disposition to oppose
the introduction of Christianity amongst them, and
. s2
254 THE SLAVE TRADE.
that they believed the king would also he glad to
hear the truths of the gospel, and that he would wish
me to stay a long time in Coomassie, after my arrival
and first interview.
In the afternoon, I rambled through the thicket,
to the summit of a distant hill, where one of the
most splendid pieces of scenery I ever saw, burst
upon my view. The bush on the summit being
rather low, I had an opportunity of viewing the sur-
rounding country, in some directions, for several
miles. Down the sloping sides of the hill the splen-
did plantain-tree was luxuriating and waving its
beautiful foliage. Then followed the delightful vale,
winding to the right and left, studded with gigantic
silk-cotton trees, acacise, mimosse, with an endless
variety of climbers.
28th, Thursday. — I travelled through a fine fertile
country of diversified hill and dale, covered witli
luxuriant vegetation, and studded with immense silk-
cotton, and other forest trees.
April 1, at 2 p.m. a messenger arrived from the
king, requesting me to proceed as early as possible.
„I immediately dressed myself; and while so doing
three other messengers arrived, each bearing a gold
sword, requesting me to hasten forward. I then
proceeded towards the town, preceded by the mes-
sengers, and some soldiers bearing arms. Having
reached the outside of the town, we halted under a
huge tree, and there awaited another royal invitation.
SUPERSTITIONS, ETC., OF THE AFRICANS. 255
In a short time his majesty's chief linguist (Apoko)
came in a palanquin, shaded by an immense umbrella,
and accompanied by messengers bearing canes nearly
covered with gold, to take charge of my luggage,
and see it safely lodged in the residence intended for
me- All these things being properly arranged, an-
other messenger arrived, accompanied by troops and
men bearing large umbrellas, requesting me to" pro-
ceed to the market-place. " The king's command-
ment" being " urgent," we pushed along with speed,
preceded by a band of music. As soon as we arrived
at the market-place, I got out of my little travelling
chair, and walked through the midst of an immense
concourse of persons, (a narrow path being kept
clear for me,) paying my respects to the king, and
his numerous chiefs and captains, who were seated
on wooden chairs, richly decorated with brass and
gold, under the shade of their splendid umbrellas,
(some of them large enough to screen twelve or four-
teen persons from the burning rays of the sun, and
crowned with images of beasts covered with gold,)
surrounded by their troops and numerous attendants.
I occupied half an hour in walking slowly through
the midst of this immense assembly, touching my hat
and waving my hand, except before the king, in
whose presence I, of course, stood for a moment un-
covered. I then took my seat at a distance, accom-
panied by my people and several respectable Fantee
traders, who are staying in the town, to receive the
256 THE SLAVE TRADE.
compliments of the king, &c, &c, according to their
usual custom.
After I had taken my seat, the immense mass
began to be in motion ; many of the chiefs first
passed me in succession, (several of them cordially
shaking me by the hand,) accompanied by their
numerous retinue. Then came the officers of the
king's household ; his treasurer, steward, &c, &c,
attended by their people, some bearing on their heads
massive pieces of silver-plate, others carrying in their
hands gold swords and canes, native stools neatly
carved, and almost covered with gold and silver, and
tobacco-pipes richly decorated with the same precious
materials. In this ostentatious display I also saw
what was calculated to harrow up the strongest and
most painful feelings ; — the royal executioners bear-
ing the blood-stained stools on which hundreds, and
perhaps thousands, of human victims have been
sacrificed by decapitation ; and also the large death-
drum, which is beaten at the moment when the fatal
knife severs the head from the body, the very sound
of which causes a thrill of horror.* This rude
* The language of this drum is known by the natives whenever
they are within hearing ; so that they are as well aware of the
moment when a sacrifice is made as though they were oii^the very
spot. While the king was making sacrifices, during the custom
for his brother, I was in a distant part of the town, conversing
with my interpreter, who, knowing the fatal meaning of the sound
of the drum, said, " Hark ! do you hear the drum ? A sacrifice
SUPERSTITIONS, ETC., OF THE AFRICANS. 257
instrument, connected with which are the most
dreadful associations, was literally covered with dried
clots of blood, and decorated with the jaw-bones and
skulls of human victims. Then followed the king,
(Quacoe Dooah,) under the shade of three splendid
umbrellas, the cloth of which was silk velvet, of dif-
ferent colours, supported by some of his numerous
attendants. The display of gold which I witnessed,
as his majesty passed, was truly astonishing. After
the king followed other chiefs, and lastly the main
body of the troops.
This immense procession occupied one hour and a
half in passing before me. There were several
Moors in the procession, but they made by no means
a conspicuous appearance.
While I was sitting to receive the compliments of
some of the first chiefs who passed, his majesty made
me a present of some palm wine.
I suppose the number of persons whom I saw col-
lected together, exceeded 40,000, including a great
number of females. The wrists of some of the chiefs
were so heavily laden with gold ornaments, that they
rested their arms on the shoulders of some of their
attendants,
The appearance of this procession was exceedingly
grand and imposing. The contrast between the peo-
ple themselves and their large umbrellas (seventy in
has just been made, and the drum says, ' King, I have killed
him. 5 "
258 THE SLAVE TRADE.
number) of various colours, which they waved and
jerked up and down in the air, together with the
dark-green foliage of the large banyan trees, under and
among which they passed, formed a scene of that
novel and extraordinary character which I feel un-
able to describe.
This morning I received information that the king
had lost one of his relations by death, and that in
consequence thereof, four human victims were already
sacrificed, and their mangled bodies lying in the
streets. I therefore concluded that I should not
have an opportunity of seeing the king for a day or
two. Shortly afterwards, I saw Apoko, the chief
linguist, and told him that I was aware that there
was bloody work going on to-day, as I saw a num-
ber of large hawks and turkey-buzzards hovering
over a certain spot where I judged these poor vic-
tims were lying. He said it was even so, and in
consequence, I should not have an opportunity of
seeing the king to-day. and, perhaps, not to-morrow.
I told him that I did not like the being confined at
one small place, in a low, unhealthy part of the town,
and that I must walk out and take exercise, other-
wise my health would suffer. I also told him that
I was anxious to commence my journey home to the
coast on Monday next. On hearing this, he went
immediately to the king, and informed him of what
I said ; shortly after which he returned, accom-
panied by two messengers, (one of them bearing in
SUPERSTITIONS, ETC., OF THE AFRICANS- 259
his hand an immense gold sword, to which was fas-
tened a golden decanter which would hold ahout a
pint,) stating that his majesty hegged of me not to
go out into the town to-day, as he was making a
custom for a departed relative ; and he knew Eu-
ropeans did not like to see human sacrifices : and,
also, that he did not wish to keep me from seeing
over his capital; that he was fully satisfied my ob-
ject was to do good ; and that he would see me as
soon as the custom was over. I, of course, com-
plied with his wishes, and made up my mind to wait
patiently.
Throughout the day I heard the horrid sound of
the death-drum ; and was informed in the evening
that twenty-five human victims had been sacrificed ;
some in the town, and some in the surrounding vil-
lages, the heads of those killed in the villages being
brought into the town in baskets. I fear there will
be more of this awful work to-morrow.
6th, Saturday. — This morning I again talked
of walking out into the town, when Apoko informed
me that more sacrifices would be made during the
day and that I must not go out until to-morrow.
I therefore remained in my quarters until the after-
noon, when, on finding myself in rather a dangerous
state for want of exercise, I insisted upon walking
out at one end of the town for half an hour. In the
evening I learned that several more human victims
had been sacrificed during the day, but could not
260 THE SLAVE TRADE.
ascertain the exact number. The most accurate
account I could obtain was that fifteen more had
suffered, making a total of forty in two days.
While speaking to Apoko I did not fail to remind
him that the law of God forbids this awful practice,
and that they were under a great error in supposing
that the persons sacrificed, would attend on the de-
ceased relative of the king in a future state.
These poor victims were allowed to be naked and
exposed in the street, until they began to swell like
dead dogs, and such is the callous state of mind in
which the people live, that many were going about
among these putrefying bodies, smoking their pipes
with astonishing indifference.
Having asked his Majesty to allow me to see the
town to-day, he readily gave me liberty to go where
ever I pleased. I therefore embraced the oppor-
tunity of looking over it, which occupied about one
hour. The streets are longer, and more clean and
uniform than any I have seen in any other native
town, since my arrival in Africa. The breadth of
some of them is at least thirty yards, and the average
length from 300 to 600 yards. The town is situated
on a bed of granite, fragments of which are strewed
in abundance over the finest streets, the average size
of them being about twenty inches cube. A row of
splendid banyan trees, at a considerable distance
from each other, occupies the centre of some of the
largest streets, affording a most delightful shade
SUPERSTITIONS, ETC., OF THE AFRICANS. 261
from the burning rays of the sun. The streets differ
also "in appearance from those of any other town
which I have seen in the interior, by the houses on
each side having open fronts. The floor being raised
from two to three feet above the level of the ground,
the space between the ground and the level of the
floor, and in some houses, a foot or two above the
level of the floor, presents a front of carved work,
beautifully polished with red ochre. In some the
carved work is continued up to the roof, and where
such is the case it is covered with white clay, which
has the appearance of a lime white-wash. The roofs
are made chiefly with bamboo -poles, or sticks with
the bark stripped off, and thatched with palm-
leaves-
Behind each of these open fronts are a number of
small houses, or rather open sheds, in which the people
dwell, (the room open to the street being more of a pub-
lic seat than a private room,) at an average number of
from thirty to forty to each open front. These small
dwellings in the back ground, are in many cases en-
tirely hidden from the observation of any one passing
along the streets, the only indication of them being a
small door on the left or right of the open front.
The houses are allbuilt on the same plan, from that
of the king down to the lowest rank of captains ;
and these are, with a few exceptions, the only per-
sons who are allowed to build in any public situation.
The rocky bed, on which the town is built, is in
262 THE SLAVE TRADE.
many parts very irregular, and some of the streets
are so full of holes, occasioned by the heavy rains
washing the earth out of the fissures of the rocks
during the rainy season, that any one attempting to
walk through them in the dark would place his neck
in danger.
There is only one stone built house in the town,
which stands on the royal premises, and is called the
castle ; all other buildings are of wood and swish, and
by no means durable.
The market-place, is a large open space about
three quarters of a mile in circumference. There is
no regularity in its form, but it approaches nearest
to that of a parallelogram. One side of it is a large
dell surrounded by large trees and high grass,* into
which they throw at last, the mangled bodies of sa-
crificed human victims. As I passed by this dell, I
smelt a most intolerable stench, proceeding from the
poor creatures who were thrown there on Saturday
last. My feelings would not permit me to look into
this horrid receptacle of the dead, but the very idea
of it is dreadful.
There are no regularly built stalls in the market-
place. Many articles of merchandise were placed on
the ground, and others on little temporary railings,
which might be put up or taken down in a few
* There is a kind of grass in the immediate neighbourhood of
Coomassie, which grows to the height of twenty feet, the stalk of
which is about three quarters of an inch in diameter-
SUPERSTITIONS, ETC., OF THE AFRICANS. 263
moments. Among the commodities exposed for
sale, I saw Manchester cloths, silk, muslins, roll
tobacco from the interior, large cakes of a kind of
pomatum, made from the fruit of a tree in the depth
of the interior, and used by the Ashantees for anoint-
ing their bodies, to give a polish to their skins ;
native tobacco pipes of very neat manufacture, cakes
of a kind of whiting, used by the natives for marking
their bodies, kankie (native bread), yams, plantains,
bananas, pines, ground nuts, fish, and the flesh of
monkeys and elephants.
11th, Thursday. — Feeling better to day, I walked
out into the town for air and exercise. As I passed
the end of one of the streets I saw a group of persons
surrounding a large Caboceers umbrella. A band of
music was playing, and a human victim lying on the
ground before them, exposed to public view ; I
turned from the disgusting and awful sight with pain-
ful feelings.
In the course of the day, I reminded Apoko of my
anxiety to obtain an answer from his majesty, respect-
ing the establishment of schools, &c. in Ashantee,
who answered, " The king will speedily give you an
answer ; and we hope you will come to Coomassie
again, and pay us another visit, as we shall be always
glad to see you. The king believes that you wish to
do him and the people good."
14th, Sunday. — At half-past 7 a. m. I conducted
divine service at my quarters. I continued in anxious
264 THE SLAVE TRADE.
expectation of a message from the king until about
1 1 o'clock, when I found, on inquiry, that Apoko
had not reminded his Majesty of seeing me to-day,
because he thought I would not like to transact any
kind of business on the Sabbath day. This idea was
the result of a previous conversation with Apoko,
during which I had explained to him the nature and
claims of the Christian Sabbath. I told him, that my
business with his majesty was of a purely religious
nature, and that I had therefore no objection to see-
ing him to-day.
In about two hours Apoko returned, accompanied
by a host of attendants, linguists, and messengers,
with a present from his Majesty, consisting of two
ounces and four ackies of gold dust (£9 currency)
and a slave for myself; also eight ackies (£2 currency)
for my interpreter and other attendants. He also
gave me the following message from the king : —
" His Majesty knows that you cannot stop longer
on account of the rains, and as the things which you
have mentioned to him require much consideration,
he cannot answer you in so short a time; but if you
will come up again, or send a messenger after the
rains are over, he will be prepared to answer you."
With this message I felt pleased, and said that I
would certainly either come up again, or send a mes-
senger at the time mentioned. I then repaired to
liis Majesty's residence to take my leave, and found
him seated in one of his apartments, surrounded by
SUPERSTITIONS, ETC., OF THE AFRICANS. 265
an immense number of attendants : when he requested
me, with a courtesy which one could scarcely expect
from a person so circumstanced, to present his com-
pliments to his Excellency, President Maclean, and
take a message to him.
Having taken my leave, I commenced my journey
at noon, preceded by an escort of troops. After I
had proceeded a short distance along the street, Apoko
came to testify his affection by a hearty shaking of the
hand.
When I reached Franfrahaw, the troops left me ;
and I stopped a few minutes to emancipate the slave
whom his Majesty had given me. This poor fellow
is from the depths of the interior, and is now in the
prime of his days.
On my informing him that he was now become a
free man, he appeared overwhelmed with gratitude,
and almost fell to the earth before me in acknowledg-
ment thereof. He had not all the joy to himself,
however, for whilst I enjoyed the luxury of doing
good, many of my people looked on him with delight,
and our pleasure was heightened when he told us,
that he had been brought out twice for the purpose
of sacrifice, during the recent custom, and had been
twice put in irons and sent back alive : and that
when he was brought out this morning he expected
to be sacrificed in the course of the day. Happy
change ! — Instead of having his head cut off, and his
body thrown to the fowls of the air, he now finds him-
266 THE SLAVE TRADE.
self in the enjoyment of liberty, safely proceeding
with ns far away from the scenes of his captivity.
Night closed in nearly an hour before I reached my
resting place, but we kept our path through the
forest without much difficulty, and reached Fomun-
nah a quarter after seven o'clock, wet, weary, and
hungry. I immediately repaired to Corintchie's resi-
dence. He seemed overjoyed to see me, gave me a
hearty shaking with both hands, put his arms around
my neck in transport, and made me a present of
palm wine, and a mess of soup made with the flesh
of the monkey. I then retired to my lodgings, and
thankfully partook of Corintchie's monkey soup to
satisfy the cravings of hunger, having little else to eat.
17th, Wednesday. — Early this morning, Corin-
tchie came to my quarters, shook me cordially
by the hand, and testified his delight at seeing
me safely returned from Coomassie. On my telling'
him that I should want him to assist me in holding-
further intercourse with the king, by sending mes-
sengers, &c, and that perhaps I should return to
Coomassie in the course of the next dry season, he
said he would readily do anything which I requested
of him.
22d, — Reached Mansue : Gabree, the chief, wel-
comed me back.
On my inquiring whether he would like a mission
to be established at Mansue, he said " Yes," and he
should feel very happy it' he had a missionary resid-
GENERAL REVIEW. 267
ing with him. Gabree is one of the most respectable
chiefs in Fantee.
Mansue, and the adjacent villages, contain a po-
pulation of at least 10,000 souls, and is admirably
situated for the establishment of a mission.
Mr. Freeman reached Cape Coast in health and
safety, April 23rd. In his letter to the secretaries
of the Wesleyan missions, he adds, " I have no
doubt as to getting up to Ashantee for the future,
with much less expense than has been incurred in
my first visit. The king would not make so much
ado the second time, as I am no longer a stranger.
I also think, that even, with a stranger, he would not
adopt the same course as he did with me, inasmuch
as the novelty is over."
Such is the fearful state of a large population in
the vicinity of a settlement which has belonged to
Great Britain for more than a century ; but, also,
such are the openings for missionaries. I know not
whether the one or the other constitutes the stronger
argument for efforts in that quarter for the spread of
education and Christian truth. I shall recur to this
subject when I speak of the " Elevation of the Native
Mind," only observing that a serious responsibility
will rest upon Christian England, if such an opening
into Interior Africa be neglected."
General Review.
My object in this part of the work has been to
"268 THE SLAVE TRADE.
furnish a description of Africa as it now is, — I shall
conclude with a few observations.
Towards the end of the last century the cruelty
and the carnage which raged in Africa were laid
open. From the most generous motives, and at a
mighty cost, we have attempted to arrest this evil ; it
is, however, but too evident, that, under the mode we
have taken for the suppression of the Slave Trade,
it has increased.
It has been proved, by documents which cannot be
controverted, that, for every village fired, and every
drove of human beings marched in former times, there
are now double. For every cargo then at sea, two
cargoes, or twice the numbers in one cargo, wedged
together in a mass of living corruption, are now
borne on the wave of the Atlantic. But, whilst
the numbers who suffer have increased, there is no
reason to believe that the sufferings of each have
been abated; on the contrary, we know that in
some particulars these have increased; so that the
sum total of misery swells in both ways. Each
individual has more to endure ; and the number of
individuals is twice what it was. The result, there-
fore, is, that aggravated suffering reaches multi-
plied numbers.
It is hardly necessary to remind the reader that the
statement I have given of the enormities attendant
on the supply of slaves to the New World must,
from the nature of the case, be a very faint picture
of the reality — a sample, and no more, of what is
GENERAL REVIEW, 269
inflicted and endured in Africa. Our knowledge is
very limited ; but few travellers have visited Africa
— the Slave Trade was not their object, and they had
slender means of information beyond what their ovyn
eyes furnished ; yet, what do they disclose !
If Africa were penetrated in every direction by
persons furnished with the means of obtaining full
and correct information, and whose object was the
delineation of the Slave Trade — if, not some isolated
spots, but the whole country, were examined — if,
instead of a few casual visitors, recording the events
of to-day, but knowing nothing of what occurred
yesterday, or shall take place to-morrow, we had
everywhere those who could chronicle every slave-
hunt, and its savage concomitants, — if we thus pos-
sessed the means of measuring the true breadth and
depth of this trade in blood — is it not fair to suppose
that a mass of horrors would be collected, in com-
parison with which all that has been hitherto related
would be as nothing ?
It should be borne in constant memory, difficult as
it is to realise, that the facts I have narrated are not
the afflictions of a narrow district, and of a few inha-
bitants ; — the scene is a quarter of the globe — a mul-
titude of millions, its population ; — that these facts
are not gleaned from the records of former times,
and preserved by historians as illustrations of the
strange and prodigious wickedness of a darker age.
They are the common occurrences of our own era —
the " customs" which prevail at this very hour. Every
t2
270 THE SLAVE TRADE.
day which we pass in security and peace at home,
witnesses many a herd of wretches toiling over the
wastes of Africa, to slavery or death ; every night
villages are roused from their sleep, to the alterna-
tives of the sword, or the flames, or the manacle.
At the time I am writing, there are at least twenty
thousand human beings on the Atlantic, exposed
to every variety of wretchedness. Well might Mr. Pitt
say, "there is something in the horror of it which
surpasses all the bounds of imagination."
I do not see how we can escape the conviction that
such is the result of our efforts, unless by giving way
to a vague and undefined hope, with no evidence to
support it, that the facts I have collected, though
true at the time, are no longer a fair exemplification
of the existing state of things. In the most recent
documents relating to the Slave Trade, I find no
ground for any such consolatory surmise ; on the
contrary, I am driven by them to the sorrowful con-
viction, that the year, from September, 1837, to
September, 1838, is distinguished beyond all pre-
ceding years for the extent of the trade, for the
intensity of its miseries, and for the unusual havoc
it makes on human life.
If I believed that the evil, terrible as it is, were
also irremediable, I should be more than ready to bury
this mass of distress, and this dark catalogue of crime,
in mournful silence, and to spare others, and especially
those who have sympathised with, and laboured for,
the negro race, from sharing with me the pain of
GENERAL REVIEW. 271
learning how wide of the truth are the expectations
in which we have indulged. But I feel no such
despondency ; I firmly believe that Africa has within
herself the means and the endowments which might
enable her to shake off, and to emerge from, her load
of misery, to the benefit of the whole civilised world,
and to the unspeakable improvement of her own, now
barbarous, population. This leads me to the second
point, viz., the capabilities of Africa.
There are two questions which require to be de-
cided before we can assume it possible to extin-
guish the Slave Trade. First, Has Africa that
latent wealth, and those unexplored resources, which
would, if they were fully developed, more than com-
pensate for the loss of the traffic in man ? Secondly,
Is it possible so to call forth her capabilities, that
her natives may perceive that the Slave Trade, far
from being the source of their wealth, is the grand
barrier to their prosperity, and that by its suppression
they would be placed in the best position for obtain-
ing all the commodities and luxuries which they are
desirous to possess ?
Beyond all doubt, she has within herself all that
is needed for the widest range of commerce, and
for the most plentiful supply of everything which
conduces to the comfort and to the affluence of
man. Her soil is eminently fertile — Ptolemy says
it " is richer in the quality, and more wonderful
in the quantity, of its productions, than Europe
or Asia." Are its limits narrow ? It stretches
272 THE SLAVE TRADE.
from the borders of the Mediterranean to the Cape
of Good Hope, and from the Atlantic to the Indian
Ocean. Are its productions such as we little want
or lightly value ? The very commodities most in
request in the civilised world are the spontane-
ous growth of these uncultivated regions. Is the
interior inaccessible ? The noblest rivers flow
through it, and would furnish a cheap and easy
mode of conveyance for every article of legitimate
trade. Is there a dearth of population, or is that
population averse to the pursuits of commerce 1
Drained of its inhabitants, as Africa has been, it
possesses an enormous population, and these emi-
nently disposed to traffic. Does it lie at so vast
a distance as to forbid the hope of continual inter-
course ? In sailing to India, we pass along its
western and eastern coasts. In comparison with
China, it is in our neighbourhood.
Are not these circumstances sufficient to create
the hope that Africa is capable of being raised from
her present abject condition, and, while improving
her own state, of adding to the enjoyments and sti-
mulating the commerce of the civilised world ?
It is earnestly to be desired that all Christian
powers should unite in one great confederacy, for the
purpose of calling into action the dormant energies
of Africa ; but if this unanimity is not to be obtained,
there are abundant reasons to induce this nation, alone
if it must so be, to undertake the task. Africa and
Great Britain stand in this relation toward each
GENERAL REVIEW. 273
other. Each possesses what the other requires, and
each requires what the other possesses. Great Bri-
tain wants raw material, and a market for her manu-
factured goods. Africa wants manufactured goods,
and a market for her raw material. Should it,
however, appear that, in place of profit, loss were to
be looked for, and obloquy instead of honour, I yet
believe that there is that commiseration, and that
conscience, in the public mind, which will induce this
country to undertake, and, with the Divine blessing,
enable her to succeed in crushing " the greatest prac-
tical evil that ever afflicted mankind."*
* Mr. Pitt.
PART II.
THE REMEDY.
The desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose. — Isaiah xxxt. 1.
PREFACE
THE REMEDY.
As the reniedj 1 contemplate is now, ior the ii i s c
time, published, it is necessary to explain the reason
why it has hitherto been withheld. In the spring- of
1838, I stated to several members of the cabinet my
views as to the suppression of the Slave Trade. I
could not reasonably expect, that, in the extreme
pressure of business during the sitting of Parliament,
they would be able to find time to give it the
consideration it required, I therefore prepared for
the press and printed a few copies of my work— de-
scribing the horrors of the Slave Trade, and propos-
ing a remedy, for the private use of the members of
the administration, and placed these in their hands
on the day that the session closed. At the latter end
of the year (December 22), after various communi-
cations with Lords Glenelg and Palmerston, I was
officially informed that the Government had resolved
11 PREFACE TO THE REMEDY.
to embrace and to adopt the substance of the plan.
A question then arose as to the propriety of printing
the whole work. It was thought highly desirable
that the public should be put in possession of the facts
which showed the extent of the Slave Trade, and the
waste of human life which accompanied it. But as
a negociation had been commenced with Spain for
the cession to Great Britain of the sovereignty of
Fernando Po, it was not deemed advisable to give
publicity to the intelligence I had obtained as to that
island, and the importance I attached to its possession.
It was therefore resolved that I should publish the
first part, withholding the Remedy till the fate of the
negociation was determined ; in consequence of which
my first volume was put into circulation in the com-
mencement of the year 1839.
The negociation has not, I regret to say, been
as yet brought to an issue ; but it is in that
state, that a definitive answer must speedily be re-
ceived, and I am assured that there is no occasion
for any further delay.
There is another point upon which I wish to make
myself clearly intelligible. Some of my most valu-
able associates have given me a friendly intimation
that they " hold themselves wholly distinct from any
measure the Government may adopt with respect to
PREFACE TO THE REMEDY. Ill
the defence of the Colonies, or the suppression of the
Slave Trade by armed force ; and that they are no^
to be considered responsible for the recommendations
that any member of our committee may make, in
connexion with such measures." This is a protest
against those passages in my Remedy in which I
advise that our squadron may for the present be ren-
dered more efficient, and that our settlements should
be protected by the British Government. I entirely
feel, that the gentlemen who have made the protest
cannot be considered as parties to this recommenda-
tion. It was a suggestion of my own — -it was offered
to Government before they had seen it — and Govern-
ment will take its own course upon the subject. In
my book I propose two distinct courses ; and I couple
them together in the same work, because the arguments
employed bear upon each of these separate questions.
In other words, I apply to the Government to do one
thing for the suppression of the Slave Trade, viz. to
strengthen our squadron ; and I apply to individuals
to join me in measures having the same object, but of
a character totally different. Such, for example, as
an attempt to elevate the mind of the people of
Africa, and to call forth the capabilities of her soil.
I have no wish to disguise my sentiments about
armed force. I deprecate, as much as any man, re-
sorting to violence and war. These are against the
IV PREFACE TO THE REMEDY.
whole tenor of my views. It will be admitted, I
think, that I have laboured hard in this book to show,
that our great error has been, that we have depended
far too much upon physical force, It is, however, the
duty of our Government to see that the peace of our
settlements be preserved. The natives whom we
induce to engage in agriculture must not be exposed
to the irruption of a savage banditti, instigated by
some miscreant from Europe, whose vessel waits
upon the shore for a human cargo. Nor must our
runaway sailors repeat in Africa the atrocities which
have been practised in New Zealand. Again and
again the Foulah tribes said to the missionaries on
the river Gambia, " Give us security, and we will
gladly till the land and pasture the cattle in your
neighbourhood." There Avere no means of thus pro-
tecting them, and hence an experiment, founded on
admirable principles, failed. But when I ask for an
effectual police force, I ask for that only. I do not
desire the employment of such a military force as
might be perverted into the means of war and con-
quest. I want only, that the man engaged in lawful
and innocent employment in Africa, should have the
same protection as an agricultural labourer or a me-
chanic receives in England ; and that there, as well
as here, the murderer and man-stealer may be ar-
rested and punished.
PREFACE TO THE REMEDY. V
It is possible that in these views I may be mis-
taken ; and that the gentlemen to whom I allude
may wholly differ from me. But there is no reason
because they do so, avowing their dissent, that they
should abstain from joining me in the task of deli-
vering Africa from the Slave Trade by the means of
her own mind, and her own resources, developed and
cultivated. In this object we heartily agree; and
for its accomplishment we may heartily unite. I
number amongst my coadjutors very many of the
Society of Friends ; but I prize too highly the disin-
terested and unflinching zeal with which that body
pursues the objects which it approves, to be content
to lose any individual of the number, especially
through a misapprehension ; and it is for the purpose
of averting this, that I have thought it necessary to
enter into this explanation.
I have already described the state of Africa. It
will on all hands be said that there are great, if not
invincible, difficulties to the application of a remedy.
This is but too true. There is only one consideration
strong enough to prompt us to grapple with these
difficulties, namely, a just apprehension of her
miseries. I pray my readers not to shrink from the
task of sedulously studying the facts collected in this
book. In the case of Africa, I fear hardly anything
VI PREFACE TO THE REMEDY.
so much as the indulgence of excessive tenderness
of feeling. If the benevolent and religious portion
of the public choose to content themselves with the
general and superficial conviction, that there is no
doubt a great mass of misery in Africa, but refuse to
sift and scrutinize each circumstance of horror,
pleading the susceptibility of their nerves as an apo-
logy to themselves for shutting their eyes and closing
their ears to such revolting details ; then the best
hope for Africa — perhaps the only hope — vanishes
away. That resolute, unflinching, untiring deter-
mination which is necessary, in order to surmount
the difficulties which lie in the way of her deliver-
ance, requires not only that the understanding should
be convinced, but that the heart should be moved.
Our feelings will be far too tame for the occasion,
unless we can, in pity to Africa, summon courage
enough to face, and to study, the horrors of the Slave
Trade, and the abominations which there grow out of
a dark and bloody superstition.
INTRODUCTION.
It has been no very difficult task to collect materials
for a description of the varied and intense miseries
with which Africa is afflicted. Every person who
visits that country, — whether his motive be the pur-
suit of traffic or the gratification of curiosity, the pro-
secution of geographical science or of missionary
labour, — brings back a copious collection of details
calculated to excite pity, disgust, and horror.
Happy would it be if it were as easy to point out
the remedy, as to explore the disease.
To this task I now address myself, difficult though
it be, from various causes — from the magnitude of
the evil — from the vast and complicated interests in-
volved — and from the comparative scantiness of our
information. For, while the miseries of Africa are such
as meet the eye of the most casual traveller, — while her
crimes and woes are such as no one can overlook ; —
the sources from whence we must hope for the remedy
lie much deeper and far more hidden from our view.
We know so little really of the interior of Africa, —
her geography, her history, her soil, climate, arid pro-
ductions, — so little of the true condition and capa-
278 THE REMEDY.
bilities of her inhabitants, that (having collected all
the information within my reach) it is with very great
diffidence I venture to put forth what appear to me,
to be the principles which must rescue her, and the
steps which we, as a nation, and as individuals,
are called upon to take, to carry those principles into
operation.
In one respect I apprehend no liability to error.
With all confidence we may affirm, that nothing per-
manent will be effected, unless we raise the native
mind. It is possible to conceive such an application
of force, as shall blockade the whole coast, and sweep
away every slaver : but should that effort relax, the
trade in man would revive. Compulsion, so long as
it lasts^ may restrain the act, but it will not eradicate
the motive. The African will not have ceased to
desire, and vehemently to crave, the spirits, the
ammunition, and the articles of finery and commerce
which Europe alone can supply : and these he can ob-
tain by the Slave Trade, and by the Slave Trade only,
while he remains what he is. The pursuit of man,
therefore, is to him not a matter of choice and selec-
tion, but of necessity, and after any interval of con-
strained abstinence he will revert to it as the business
of his life.
But, when the African nations shall emerge from
their present state of darkness and debasement, they
will require no arguments from us, to convince them
of the monstrous impolicy of the Slave Trade. They
will not be content to see their remaining territories
INTRODUCTION. 279
a wilderness, themselves in penury, their villages
exposed day after day to havoc and conflagration, their
children kidnapped and slaughtered, — and all for the
purpose of gaining a paltry supply of the most in-
ferior and pernicious articles of Europe. They will
perceive, that their effective strength may he applied
to other, and more lucrative purposes : and as their
intellect advances, it is not too much to hope that
their morals will improve, and that they will awaken
to the enormous wickedness, as well as folly, of this
cruel system. " Europe, therefore," (to use the words
of one of the most distinguished of African travel-
lers,*) "will have done little for the Blacks, if the
abolition of the Atlantic Slave Trade is not followed
up by some wise and grand plan for the civilization
of the continent. None presents a fairer prospect
than the education of the sons of Africa in their own
country, and by their own countrymen previously
educated by Europeans."
We may assume, and with almost equal confi-
dence, that Africa can never be delivered, till we
have called forth the rich productiveness of her soil.
She derives, it must be confessed, some pecuniary
advantage from the Slave Trade: happily, however,
it is the smallest possible amount of revenue, at
the largest possible amount of cost. The strength
of our case, and the foundation of our hope, lie in
the assurance, — I am tempted rather to call it, the
indisputable certainty, — that the soil will yield a far
* Burckhardt, p. 344.
280 THE REMEDY.
more generous return. Grant that the chieftains
sell every year 250,000 of the inhabitants, and that into
their hands £4 per head is honestly paid. (This is not
the fact, however, for they are often defrauded alto-
gether, and are always cheated by receiving mer-
chandise of the most inferior description.) Bat let us
suppose that they get the value of one million of
money : we have, from this sum, to deduct, first, the
cost of maintaining their armies intended for the
Slave Trade : then of the reprisals which are made
upon themselves, and the consequent ravage of their
land and destruction of their property : thirdly, the
material items of arms, ammunition, and ardent
spirits, which form one-third of the whole of the
goods imported into Central Africa, and the greater
part of which are consumed in their horrid slave-
hunts :* — to say nothing of any indirect loss, such
as millions of [fertile acres being left a desert ;
— nothing of perils encountered and torments en-
dured ; — making no other abatement than the three
sources of direct and unavoidable expense which I
have named, — the million will have melted away
to a very slender sum. Call the clear profit, for
argument's sake, £300,000 ;— and is £300,000 all
that can be reaped from so extensive a portion of the
* I remember it was given in evidence before a Parliamentary
Committee, that an African chief thus concisely stated his mer-
cantile views: — "We want three things, viz. powder, bull, and
brandy ; and we have three things to sell, viz. men, women, and
children. "
INTRODUCTION. 281
globe, inferior to none other in native wealth ? Her
fisheries, separately taken, would yield more ; or her
mines, or her timber, or her drugs, her indigo, or her
sugar, or her cotton.
I am then stedfast in my belief, that the capabili-
ties of Africa would furnish full compensation to
that country for the loss of the Slave Trade. It may
sound visionary at the present time, but I expect that
at some future, and not very distant day, it will
appear, that for every pound she now receives from
the export of her people, a hundred pounds' worth
of produce, either for home consumption or foreign
commerce, will be raised from the fertility of her
soil.
It is something to know that there is a natural and
an infallible remedy for the distractions of Africa,
and that the remedy is within reach, were there but
the sagacity to use it. It is another question, how
we shall cause that remedy to be applied, and how
we shall make manifest to the clouded perceptions of
her people, the false economy of selling her effective
strength, while her plains remain a desert, instead
of employing that strength in transforming that
desert into a fruitful and smiling land. Capabi-
lities are nothing to the unreflecting mind of the
savage : he wants something present and tan-
gible.
How then shall we undeceive her chiefs, and con-
vince them, that it is for their interest that the Slave
Trade should cease 1 This we must do for Africa :
282 THE REMEDY.
we must elevate the minds of her people, and call
forth the capabilities of her soil.
Bearing in mind, that every effort we make must
be intended, either directly or remotely, to effect one,
or other, or both of these objects, I now proceed,
to a detail of the remedial measures which it seems
necessary to adopt.
283
CHAPTER I.
PREPARATORY MEASURES.
The first thing to be done, is to throw all possible
impediments in the way of the Slave Trade, and to
make it both more precarious and less profitable than
it is at present.
In order to do this, our squadron must be ren-
dered more efficient ; and this it is supposed may be
accomplished —
1st. By concentrating on the coast of Africa
the whole force employed in this particular ser-
vice. It has been our practice hitherto to distri-
bute a few ships along the African coast, while others
cruise near South America and the West Indies.
The former, though they have failed in suppressing
the trade, have at all events done something
towards the annoyance of the trader. The latter,
with equal zeal, and a much larger force, have done
little or nothing towards this object. On the ave-
rage of the last four years to which the accounts
extend, viz., 1834-5-6 and 7, we have had on the
West Indian and South American stations 42 vessels
of war ; on the African station, 14. By the former
there have been taken and adjudicated, in four years,
34 slavers ; by the smaller squadron, 97.
I am not so ignorant as to infer that the Admi-
u
284 THE REMEDY.
ralty were in error in this distribution of their dis-
posable force. I well know that other objects than the
suppression of the Slave Trade demanded attention :
as little do I presume to cast any reflection upon
the naval officers in command. But from these facts I
conceive I am entitled to draw the conclusion, that,
as far as the Slave Trade is concerned, little or no
benefit has been derived from the force stationed in
the neighbourhood of Cuba and Brazil.
2dly. The efficiency of our squadron may be im-
proved by an actual increase of the force.
I am aware that some gentlemen, seeing that all
our past naval efforts have failed, are in favour of
withdrawing our whole force, and of relying exclu-
sively on other means ; but it appears to me, that in
order to try these other means with the most advan-
tage, it is needful, for a time, to retain our force on
the coast of Africa.
If at the moment when we are beginning to
encourage agricultural industry, and to give an im-
pulse to the minds of her people, our navy were to
abandon the coast, there can be no doubt that it
would be a signal to the chiefs of the country (still
ignorant of the resources of their soil, and still sup-
posing that the Slave Trade alone can supply them
with the luxuries of Europe) to prosecute their horrid
traffic with even more than their usual energy.
They would avail themselves of the removal of the
only check which they have hitherto fell, and at the
very moment when our last ship departed from the
EFFICIENCY OF NAVAL FORCE. 285
coast, Africa would present a scene of conflagration,
massacre, and convulsion, such as even Africa has
never before witnessed.
Can it be imagined that agriculture could thrive or
the voice of the teacher receive attention, or the arts
of peace take root, at such a moment ? Having per-
severed so long and so unprofitably in the attempt to
suppress the traffic by force, it would be a poor mode
of repairing our error, to dismiss that force just at
the time when we most required tranquillity, and
when anything likely to give a new impulse to the
Slave Trade would be peculiarly unseasonable.
It would appear to be a wiser policy to augment
our force, and thus to multiply the risks, while we
reduce the profits of the trade. We should try, if it
were only for a given period, the full effect of what
can be done by our maritime strength : instead of
doling out, year by year, a force inadequate to our
object, we should at this juncture strike a telling-
blow, so that the African, while measuring the ad-
vantages of that system which we wish him to aban-
don, against that which we desire to see adopted, may
feel in its greatest force the weight of those hazards
and discouragements which the British navy can
interpose.
3dly. We may increase the efficiency of our
squadron by the employment of steamers as part of
the proposed reinforcement. I am, it must be con-
fessed, but ill qualified to offer an opinion on a
matter which comes rather within the province of
u 2
286 THE REMEDY.
naval officers. I can only say, that amongst the
many persons conversant with the coast of Africa,
and with the Slave Trade, from whom I have sought
information, I have not met with an individual
who has not urged that steamers might be employed
with great advantage. It is not only, that they
would be able to explore rivers and harbours, which
other vessels cannot enter, but that in latitudes
where frequent calms prevail, they might often
come up with slavers, which have hitherto escaped
our cruisers. We know too well, that with his slaves
safely on board, and his vessel fairly at sea, it is not
often that the slave trader is captured. " Once out-
side in my trim vessel, you may catch me if you
can,"* is, unhappily, something more than an empty
vaunt. In the proposed employment of steamers, to
search the mouths of rivers, one precaution is indis-
pensable. They must be manned by persons who
can bear the climate to which they will be exposed.
Admiral Elliott, now commanding on this station,
objects to exploring the rivers, on account of the
loss of life which invariably follows among British
seamen : he recommends the enlistment of black sea-
men for this service, and the purchase of small armed
steamers to be employed exclusively in river navigation.
I may as well say here, once for all, that, in all
our African undertakings, I look to the employment
(except in a very few cases) of the negro and co-
loured race, and that I have reason to believe that
* Vide page 1G4.
TREATIES WITH AFRICA. 287
well qualified agents of that description may be pro-
cured without difficulty.
I proceed now to the suggestion of a second pre-
paratory measure.
Treaties should be formed with native powers in
Africa — they receiving certain advantages, propor-
tioned to the assistance they afford in the prosecution
of our objects, and engaging on their side, to put down
the Slave Trade. I do not mean to say, that this is
all that ought to be contemplated in these treaties.
To give facilities for commerce and agricultural set-
tlements will be a subject of consideration hereafter.
All I urge at this point of the argument, is, that we
should do our utmost to obtain the cordial co-opera-
tion of the natives in the suppression of their detestable
traffic.
I am aware that a formidable objection to this pro-
position will present itself to many of my readers.
It will be said, that it is visionary to suppose that these
barbarian chieftains can be induced, except by force
of arms, to connect themselves with us, — to lend us
their aid in extinguishing their only trade, — to enter
into peaceable commerce with us ; and, yet more,
to admit us, as friends, into their dominions, and
voluntarily to grant us such an extent of territory
and of privileges, as shall enable us to plant settle-
ments among them.
I trust, however, that in this case, we are to be
guided, not by preconceived opinions, but by facts
gathered from experience. The truth is, and on this
288 THE REMEDY.
my hopes are built, that the natives, so far from shun-
ning intercourse withus,and rejecting our overtures for
peace and commerce, have been, in almost every case,
eager and importunate that we should settle among
them. If further progress has not been made, it is our-
selves who have been to blame. I find abundant in-
stances in which they have declared their willingness
and ability to suppress the Slave Trade, and in which
they have offered to grant every facility for commerce,
— to cede territory, — and, in not a few cases, to put
themselves under our dominion. I find even treaties to
this effect, formed between British officers and native
chiefs. But I can seldom find that these invitations
to amity and commerce have been encouraged, or that
these treaties have been ratified by the Home Go-
vernment.
I grant that this anxiety on the part of the negroes
to hold communication with us, is one of the most
unexpected, as it is one of the most encouraging fea-
tures of the whole case. It would have been far from
strange if the disposition of African potentates had
been adverse to a connexion with us. They have
had but little reason to think favourably of Eu-
ropean intentions, or to feel any great reverence for
those who bear the name of Christians. If they are
otherwise than distrustful of us, it must arise from
their drawing a distinction between the course we
pursue in Africa, and that taken by other civilised
nations ; and from their having learnt by experience
duly to appreciate the nature of our settlements at
TREATIES WITH AFRICA. 289
Sierra Leone and elsewhere ; or else from a deeper
sense than we give them credit for, of their own forlorn
and disastrous condition, and a conviction that they
would be likely to improve it by intercourse with us.
It may be, that they loathe their present evils further
than we know, and, feeling impotent to rise out of
their distresses by their own vigour, hope for deliver-
ance through our instrumentality. But we must reason
on facts as we find them ; and I believe that they bear
me out in stating, that there exists throughout the
whole space, from Senegambia to Benin, a marked
confidence in the British ; and not only a readiness, but
an anxiety, to have us for their neighbours, and to
enter into amicable relations with us. I need not say
how much depends upon the truth or fallacy of this
statement. If it be true, many of the most formida-
ble difficulties in our way are removed, and there
will be, at least, an admitted possibility of a league
between England and Africa, — for the suppression of
the Slave Trade,— for the spread of commerce, — and
for the development of those vast resources which are
buried in the African soil. This, then, I shall endea-
vour to prove ; but as there is an exception to this
facility of intercourse, I will state it at once.
I suspect it will be very difficult to gain the concur-
rence of the chiefs on the coast : these, in the words
of a gentleman who has spent many years in studying
the geography of Africa, and the character of its inha-
bitants, are " a rabble of petty chiefs, the most igno-
rant and rude, and the greatest vagabonds on earth,"
290 THE REMEDY.
They have been rendered habitual drunkards by
the spirits which Slave Ships supply. As slave-
factors, they have been steeled against all com-
passion and all sympathy with human suffering;
and no better influence has been exercised over them,
than that derived from intercourse with the dregs of
Europe. Besides, they obtain a two-fold advantage
from the Slave Trade. The goods they obtain from
Europeans give a considerable profit when sold
to the natives, while the slaves, received by them
ill return for those goods, yield a profit still more con-
siderable, when sold to the slave- captain.
We must then expect great opposition from the
chiefs on the coast. It appears, indeed, from the
journals of all travellers in Africa, that every impedi-
ment has been thrown in their way, in order to pre-
vent their proceeding to the interior of the country.
It is, however, some consolation to learn from re-
cent travellers, that the power of these chiefs has
been greatly exaggerated.
But whatever difficulties we may have to encoun-
ter with the chiefs on the coast, (and I confess that,
viewing their character, and the insalubrity of
the climate near the sea, and at the mouths of
rivers, I apprehend that they will be far from
light,) there is good reason to believe that we shall
find a much better disposition on the part of the
Sultans and sovereigns of the interior, to receive, to
treat, and to trade with us. I shall endeavour to
show, first, that with respect to the two most power-
TREATIES WITH AFRICA. 291
ful potentates of Central Africa, the Sheikh of Bor-
nou, and the Sultan of the Felatahs, there is some
reason for supposing that we need not despair of
their co-operation.
Major Denham, in speaking of the Slave Trade at
Bornou, says : — ". I think I may say, that neither the
Sheikh himself, nor the Bornou people, carry on the
traffic without feelings of disgust, which even habit
cannot conquer. Of the existence of a foreign Slave
Trade, or one which consigns these unfortunates to
Christian masters, they are not generally aware at
Bornou ; and so contrary to the tenets of his religion,
(Mahometanism,) of which he is a strict observer,
would be such a system of barter, that one may
easily conclude the Sheikh of Bornou would be will-
ing to assist, with all the power he possesses, in any
plan which might have for its object the putting a
final stop to a commerce of this nature.
" The eagerness with which all classes of people
listened to our proposals for establishing a frequent
communication by means of European merchants,
and the protection promised by the Sheikh to such
as should arrive within the sphere of his influence,
particularly if they were English, excites an anxious
hope that some measures will be adopted for directing
the labours of a population of millions, to something
more congenial to the humanity and the philanthropy
of the age we live in, than the practice of a system of
predatory warfare, which has chiefly for its object the
292 THE REMEDY.
procuring of slaves, as the readiest and most valuable
property to trade with.
" Every probability is against such a barter being
preferred by the African black. Let the words of
the Sheikh himself, addressed to us, in the hearing of
his people, speak the sentiments that have already
found a place in his bosom : — ' You say true, we are
all sons of one father ! You say, also, that the sons of
Adam should not sell one another, and you know
everything ! God has given you all great talents,
but what are we to do ? The Arabs who come here
will have nothing else but slaves : why don't you
send us your merchants ? You know us now, and
let them bring their women with them, and live
amongst us, and teach us what you talk to me
about so often, to build houses, and boats, and make
rockets.' "
He adds, " Wherever El Kenemy, the sultan of
Bornou, has power, Europeans, and particularly
Englishmen, will be hospitably and kindly received.
Although harassed by the constant wars in which he
has been engaged, yet has not the Sheikh been
unmindful of the benefits which an extended com-
merce would confer upon his people, nor of the
importance of improving their moral condition, by
exciting a desire to acquire, by industry and trade,
more permanent and certain advantages than are to
be obtained by a system of plunder and destructive
warfare. Arab or Moorish merchants, the only ones
TREATIES WITH AFRICA, 293
who have hitherto ventured amongst them, are en-
couraged and treated with great liberality.
" It was with feelings of the highest satisfaction that
I listened to some of the most respectable of the
merchants, when they declared, that were any other
system of trading adopted, they would gladly embrace
it, in preference to dealing in slaves."
Denham makes these observations in 1824 ; in
1830, Richard Lander says, he learnt that the Sheikh
of Bornou had prohibited the canying of slaves any
farther to the westward (that is, towards the coast)
than Wawa, a town on the borders of his empire ;
and it is not unworthy of notice, that when Lander
was at this place a few years before, the chief of
Wawa said to him, " Tell your countrymen that they
have my permission to come here and build a town,
and trade up and down the Quorra" (the Niger).
Captain Clapperton visited Bello, the powerful
sultan of the Felatahs, in 1823, at Sackatoo. Their
conversation often turned on the Slave Trade, which
Clapperton urged the sultan to discontinue. Bello
asked the captain, if the king of England would send
him a consul, and a physician, to reside in Soudan, and
merchants to trade with his people 1 Clapperton
said he had no doubt his wishes would be gratified,
provided he would suppress the Slave Trade. The
Sultan replied, " I will give the king of England a
place on the coast to build a town." On another
occasion, he assured Clapperton that he was able to
put an effectual stop to the Slave Trade ; and ex-
294 THE REMEDY.
pressed, with much earnestness of manner, his anxi-
ety to enter into permanent relations of trade and
friendship with England. At the close of Clapper-
ton's visit, Bello gave him a letter to the king of
England, to the same purport as the conversation
which had taken place between them. These offers
on the part of the Sultan of the Felatahs must be
held to be of great importance. He is the chief of
a warlike, enterprising people, who have extended
their sway over many of the nations and tribes around
them ; and who, from the testimony of recent tra-
vellers, are actively employed in carrying on war
Avith their neighbours to supply the demands of the
Slave Trade. It appears that Captain Clapperton
met with an ungracious reception from Sultan Bello,
in his last visit to Sackatoo in 1826 ; but this is
accounted for by the Sultan's having discovered
that Clapperton was on his way to visit his rival,
the Sheik of Bornou, with whom he was then at
war, and by the jealousy of the Arab merchants and
slave-dealers, who had carefully instilled into his
mind, of suspicions as to the intentions of Great Bri-
tain. I am not aware that anything has been done to
counteract this impression ; but it would not be diffi-
cult to disabuse the mind of Bello, who would, no
doubt, be induced by a few presents, to afford his
countenance and protection to British trade, by which
Houssa would be so greatly benefited.
I will now proceed to prove, that there likewise
exists on the part of the chiefs of less powerful tribes a
TREATIES WITH AFRICA. 295
disposition to enter into friendly relations with us. I
give a single illustration : — In a despatch from Acting
Governor Grant, dated Sierra Leone, 28th February,
1821, I find that " an application had been made to
Governor Macarthy by the king of the Foulahs, a very
powerful prince in the interior, expressing a desire to
have an officer sent up to Teemboo, the capital of
his territories; and having myself," he says, "received
a very friendly letter from the king, I was induced,
in conformity with Governor Macarthy's intentions,
to despatch Mr. O'Beirn, assistant-surgeon to the
forces, on that service. The influence of the Foulah
nation, extending from the branches of the Sierra
Leone River to the banks of the Niger, and com-
municating with the principal countries of the inte-
rior, renders a friendly connexion with that country
of much importance to our commercial interests;
and it is with much satisfaction I have to report the
good effect of Mr. O'Beirn's exertions ; which are al-
ready felt here, in the increased supply of ivory, gold,
and cattle, brought by the Foulahs to our different
factories situate on this river. Mr. O'Beirn is merely
accompanied by a few people of colour to carry his
luggage and presents, the expense of which will be
trifling." He was received in the most friendly
manner possible at Teemboo, the capital of the
Foulah nation, by the king, Almami Abdool Kacl-
dree.
The following is an extract from Mr. O'Beirn's
Journal : — " I never saw more joy and complacency
296 THE REMEDY.
in any countenance, than his expressed, on my being
introduced to him, and I have seldom in my life
experienced such a kind and warm reception." The
chiefs were assembled to hear his explanation of the
objects of his mission : he explained to them the
great advantage they would derive from carrying on
a trade with the colony, and how much superior such
a trade would be to the traffic in slaves ; and told
them, what England had done to put an end to it, and
to give freedom to their countrymen.
"Almami replied, that he had for many years
wished for a communication to be opened between
Sierra Leone and his country, Foota jalloo, and
that it should continue free and uninterrupted to the
latest day ; adding, that it was not his fault, or it would
have been effected years before. He likewise re-
marked, with respect to what I had said of the Slave
Trade, it was his opinion that it would be given up
ere long ; that is, sending them for sale to the coast,
and that he was fully Convinced he would be brought
to account in the next world for disposing of his
fellow-creatures in that way ; but hoped, at the same
time, God would accept the excuse of the impossibility
that formerly existed of procuring the necessaries of
life in such abundance, or resisting the inducements
held out, at that time, by the white people that came
to purchase them."
I do not wish to impose upon my readers the
monotonous task of travelling through a variety of
such treaties which these chieftains have made, or
TREATIES WITH AFRICA. 297
have offered to make, with the British Government :
these will be given in the Appendix ;* and I appre-
hend that those who take the trouble of examining-
them will find, that there is no unwillingness on their
part to grant any reasonable quantity of land, —
any powers however extensive, — and any conditions
for the suppression of the Slave Trade, that we may
think proper to propose ; and that all this may be
obtained for the trifling consideration of a few dollars,
or a few pieces of baft. I am ready to admit that
little benefit has hitherto resulted from these negocia-
tions, but this does not arise from any faithlessness
on the part of the natives in the fulfilment of their
engagements ; on the contrary, I may quote the un-
exceptionable authority of Mr. Bandinel, of the
Foreign Office, for the fact, that "compacts for
the suppression of the Slave Trade have been con-
cluded with the chiefs of several native states, and
that those treaties have been faithfully maintained
by the native sovereigns." Mr. Rendall, late Gover-
nor of the Gambia, also says : — " With respect to
the general conduct of the chiefs, I am not aware
of our having any just cause to complain of a
breach of confidence being committed in the treaties
heretofore made with them, nor do I think there is
any just cause to fear that they are now more likely
to forfeit their words and honour, particularly in
cases where their interests are studiously considered."
The reason why greater advantage has not been
* Vide Appendix A.
298 THE REMEDY.
derived from co-operation with these powers, is, as
I have before intimated, that the British Govern-
ment has discountenanced almost all efforts in that
direction. " It has never," says Mr. H. Macaulay,
Commissary Judge of Sierra Leone, in his evi-
dence before the Aborigines Committee, in 1837,
"been the policy of our government from the first,
while it was in the hands of the company, nor since
it has been transferred to the crown, to extend our
territory in any way. Even when General Turner
and Sir Neil Campbell Avere governors in former
years, and acquired by treaty, and other just means,
territory in the neighbourhood, and paid for it, the
government ordered us to give it back. They would
not allow us to take possession of it and occupy it
as a British territory. And though, in my opinion,
it would be desirable to extend our territory as our
population increases so much, yet it has not been
done." To the question — "Do you think it would
be expedient or just to take possession^ of the terri-
tory of these people without their consent?" He
answers, " Certainly not ; but we are such good
neighbours, and they have such perfect confidence in
us, that I think there would be no difficulty in acquir-
ing territory by treaty." " Have you found any
difficulty in preserving relations of amity with the
surrounding natives?" — " None whatever."
It appears to me well worth while to adopt an
entirely new line of policy, and to establish, to the ut-
' ost extent possible, a confederacy with the chiefs,
OBJECT OF PREPARATORY MEASURES. 299
from the Gambia on the West, to Begharmi on the
East ; and from the Desert on the North, to the Gulf
of Guinea on the South.
Thus, I have suggested two distinct kinds of
preparatory measures.
1st. An augmentation of the naval force employed
in the suppression of the Slave Trade, and the con-
centration of that force on the coast of Africa, thus
forming a chain of vessels from Gambia to Angola.
2ndly. A corresponding chain of treaties with na-
tive powers in the interior, pledging them to act in
concert with us ; to suppress the Slave Trade in their
own territory ; to prevent slaves from being carried
through their dominions, and, at the same time, to
afford all needful facility and protection for the trans-
port of legitimate merchandise. Thus, by creating
obstacles which have not heretofore existed, in the
conveyance of negroes to the coast, and by increasing
the hazard of capture after embarkation, I cannot but
anticipate that we shall greatly increase the costs
and multiply the risks of the Slave Trade.
If I am asked, whether I expect thus to effect
its total abolition, I answer distinctly, No : — such
measures may reduce, or even suspend, but they can-
not eradicate the evil. If we succeed in establishing
a blockade of the coast, together with a confederacy
on shore, and proceed no further, it will still be
doubtful, as it has been in our former operations,
whether more of good or of evil will be effected ; —
good, by the degree of restraint imposed on the traffic,
x
300 THE REMEDY,
or evil, by rendering what remains concealed and
contraband ; and when I recur to the fearful aggra-
vation of the sufferings of the slaves, which has
already arisen from this cause, I am almost disposed
to think that it were better to do nothing than to do
only this.
I propose the two measures I have just named,
not as a remedy, but as an expedient necessary for
a time, in order that the real remedy may be applied
in the most effectual manner. For a time, the dan-
gers and difficulties of the slave-trader must be
increased, in order that the demand for slaves on the
coast may be reduced in the interval that must neces-
sarily elapse before a total suppression can be ef-
fected. There was a time, during the last war,
when our cruisers were so numerous in the African
seas, that it was difficult for a slaver to escape^; and
it was then observed that the chiefs betook themselves
to agriculture and trade.
The greater the impediments that are thrown in
the way of obtaining supplies through the accus-
tomed channels, the stronger becomes the induce-
ment to procure them in another and better mode ;
and thus, the diminution of the Slave Trade will
operate as an encouragement to industry, and a
stimulus to commerce. And the evil being thus
temporarily held in check, time and space, so to
speak, will be given for the effectual operation of the
remedy.
SOI
CHAPTER II.
COMMERCE AND CULTIVATION.
' It was not possible for me to behold the fertility of the soil, the vast herds
of cattle, proper both for labour and food, and a variety of other circum-
stances favourable to colonization and agriculture, and reflect withal on the
means which presented themselves of a vast inland navigation, without la-
menting that a country so abundantly gifted and honoured by nature, should
remain in its present savage and neglected state." — Park.
" The commercial intercourse of Africa opens an inexhaustible source of
wealth to the manufacturing interests of Great Britain — to all which the
Slave Trade is a physical obstruction.'' — Gustavus Vasa. Letter to Lord
Hawkesbitry. 1788.
But what is the true remedy ? It cannot be too
deeply engraven upon the minds of British states-
men, that it is beyond our power to rescue Africa,
if the burthen is to fall wholly and permanently on
ourselves. It is not the partial aid, lent by a dis-
tant nation, but the natural and healthy exercise
of her own energies, which will ensure success.
We cannot create a remedy ; but, if it be true that
this remedy already exists, and that nothing is
wanting but its right application — if Africa possesses
within herself vast, though as yet undeveloped, re-
sources, — we may be competent to achieve the
much less onerous task of calling forth her powers,
x2
302 THE REMEDY.
and enabling her to stand alone, relying upon the
strength of her own native sinews. The work
will be done, when, her population shall be suffi-
ciently enlightened to arrive at the conviction,
(grounded on what their eyes see, and their hands
handle,) that the wealth readily to be obtained from
peaceful industry, surpasses the slender and preca-
rious profits of rapine.
Our system hitherto has been to obtain the co-ope-
ration of European powers, while we have paid very
little attention to what might be done in Africa itself,
for the suppression of the Slave Trade. Our efforts in
that direction have been few, faint, and limited to
isolated spots, and those by no means well chosen.
To me it appears that the converse of this policy
would have offered greater probabilities of success ;
that, while no reasonable expectations can be enter-
tained of overturning this gigantic evil through the
agency and with the concurrence of the civilised
world, there is a well-founded hope, amounting al-
most to a certainty, that this object may be attained
through the medium and Avith the concurrence of
Africa herself. If, instead of our expensive and fruit-
less negotiations with Portugal, we had been, during
the last twenty years, engaged in extending our inter-
course with the nations of Africa, unfolding to them
the capabilities of her soil, and the inexhaustible
store of wealth which human labour might derive
from its cultivation, and convincing them that the
Slave Trade alone debars them from enjoying a
AFRICAN COMMERCE. 303
vastly more affluent supply of our valuable commo-
dities, and if we had leagued ourselves with them to
suppress that baneful traffic, which is their enemy
even more than it is ours, there is reason to believe
that Africa would not have been what Africa is, in
spite of all our exertions, — one universal den of de-
solation, misery, and crime.
Why do I despair of winning the hearty co-opera-
tion of those European powers who now encourage
or connive at the Slave Trade ? I answer, because
we have no sufficient bribe to offer. The secret
of their resistance is the 180 per cent, profit which,
attaches to the Slave Trade. This is a tempta-
tion which we cannot outbid. It has been, and it
will be, the source of their persevering disregard
of the claims of humanity, and of their contempt for
the engagements, however solemn, which they have
contracted with us.
But why do I entertain a confident persuasion that
we may obtain the cordial concurrence of the African
powers ? Because the Slave Trade is not their gain,
but their loss. It is their ruin, because it is capable
of demonstration, that, but for the Slave Trade, the
other trade of Africa would be increased fifty or a
hundred-fold. Because central Africa now receives
in exchange for all her exports, both of people and
productions, less than half a million of imports, one-
half of which may be goods of the worst description,
and a third made up of arms and ammunition. What
a wretched return is this, for the productions of so
304 THE REMEDY.
vast, so fertile, so magnificent a territory ! Take
the case of central Africa ; the insignificance of our
trade with it is forcibly exhibited by contrasting the
whole return from thence, with some single article of
no great moment which enters Great Britain. The
feathers received at Liverpool from Ireland reach an
amount exceeding all the productions of central
Africa; the eggs from France and Ireland exceed
one-half of it ; while the value of pigs from Ireland
into the port of Liverpool is three times as great as
the whole trade of Great Britain in the productions of
the soil of central Africa.* What an exhibition does
this give of the ruin which the Slave Trade entails
on Africa ! Can it be doubted that, with the extinc-
tion of that blight, there would arise up a commerce
which would pour into Africa European articles of
a vastly superior quality, and to a vastly superior
amount ?
If it be true that Africa would be enriched, and
that her population would enjoy, in multiplied abun-
dance, those commodities, for the acquisition of which
she now incurs such intense misery, the one needful
* Eggs, total amount unknown, but into London,
Liverpool, and Glasgow, from France and £.
Ireland alone 275,000
Feathers from Ireland to Liverpool (Porter's
"Progress of Nation," p. 83) . . 500,000
Pigs from Ireland to Liverpool (Porter, [bid.) 1,488,555
Total imports, productions of the soil of Central
Africa (Porter'sTablcs, Supplement, No. 5) 150 . 01 I
AFRICAN COMMERCE. 305
thing, in order to induce them to unite with us in
repressing the Slave Trade, is, to convince them that
they will gain by selling the productive labour of the
people, instead of the people themselves.
My first object, then, is to show that Africa pos-
sesses within herself the means of obtaining, by fair
trade, a greater quantity of our goods than she now
receives from tiie Slave Trade ; and, secondly, to
point out how this truth may be made plain to the
African nations. I have further to prove, that Great
Britain, and other countries (for the argument applies
as much to them as to us), have an interest in the
question only inferior to that of Africa, and that if we
cannot be persuaded to suppress the Slave Trade for
the fear of God, Or in pity to man, it ought to be done
for the lucre of gain.
The importance of Africa, as a vast field of Euro-
pean commerce, though it has been frequently ad-
verted to, and its advantages distinctly pointed out
by those who have visited that part of the world, has
not hitherto sufficiently engaged public attention, oi-
led to any great practical results. It is, perhaps, not
difficult to account for the apathy which has been
manifested on this subject — Africa has a bad name ;
its climate is represented, and not altogether unjustly,
as pestilential, and destructive of European life ; its
population as barbarous and ignorant, indolent and
cruel — more addicted to predatory warfare than to
the arts of peace ; and its interior as totally inacces-
sible to European enterprise. With the exception of
306 THE REMEDY.
a few spots_, such as Sierra Leone, the Gambia, the
Senegal, &c, its immensely extended line of coast is
open to the ravages and demoralization of the Slave
Trade, and the devastating incursions of pirates. The
difficulties connected with the establishment of a le-
gitimate commerce with Africa may be traced prin-
cipally to these circumstances ; and could they be re-
moved, by the removal of their cause, the obstacles
arising from climate — the supposed character of its
people — and the difficulty of access to the interior,
would be easily overcome.
Legitimate commerce would put down the Slave
Trade, by demonstrating the superior value of man
as a labourer on the soil, to man as an object of
merchandise ; and if conducted on wise and equi-
table principles, might be the precursor, or rather
the attendant, of civilisation, peace, and Christianity,
to the unenlightened, warlike, and heathen tribes who
now so fearfully prey on each other, to supply the
slave-markets of the New World. In this view of
the subject, the merchant, the philanthropist, the
patriot, and the Christian, may unite ; and should
the Government of this country lend its powerful in-
fluence in organising a commercial system of just,
liberal, and comprehensive principles — guarding the
rights of the native on the one hand, and securing pro-
tection to the honest trader on the other, — a blow
would be struck at the nefarious traffic in human
beings, from which it could not recover; and the
richest blessings would be conferred on Africa, so
AFRICAN COMMERCE. 307
long desolated and degraded by its intercourse with
the basest and most iniquitous part of mankind.
The present condition of Africa in relation to com-
merce is deplorable.
The whole amount of goods exported direct from
Great Britain to all Africa is considerably within one
million sterling.
In the year 1835, the declared value of British
and Irish produce and manufactures exported to the
whole of Africa was £917,726.
Central Africa possesses within itself everything
from which commerce springs. No country in the
world has nobler rivers, or more fertile soil ; and it
contains a population of fifty millions.
This country, which ought to be amongst the chief
of our customers, takes from us only to the value of
£312,938 of our manufactures, £101,104* of which
are made up of the value of arms and ammunition,
and lead and shot.
I must request the reader to fix his attention on
these facts; they present a dreadful picture of the
moral prostration of Africa, — of the power of the
Slave Trade in withering all healthy commerce, — of
the atrocious means resorted to, in order to maintain
and perpetuate its horrors, — and of the very slender
sum which can be put down as expended in fair and
honest trading.
The declared value of British and Irish produce
* Parliamentary Returns for 1837.
308 THE REMEDY.
and manufactures, exported in 1837, was, according
to parliamentary returns —
To Asia .... £4,639,736
America . . . 15,496,552
Australia . . . 921,568
Hayti / • - 171,050
Central Africa . . . 312,938
Deducting from this last sum the value of arms,
ammunition, &c, the remnant of the annual trade of
this country, so favoured by nature, and endowed
with such capabilities for commerce, is but £211,834.
There is many a cotton spinner in Manchester
who manufactures much more ; there are some
dealers in London whose yearly trade is ten times
that sum ; and there is many a merchant in this
country who exports more than the amount of our
whole exports to Africa, arms and ammunition in-
cluded.
The imports from Africa into this country, though
they have, undoubtedly, increased since the year
1820, are still extremely limited ; and it is observ-
able that they scarcely embrace any articles produced
from the cultivation of the soil. Their estimated
value, in 1834, was £456,014* (exclusive of gold
dust, about £260,000) ; they consisted chiefly of
palm-oil, teak timber, gums, ivory, bees'-wax, &c,
* Sec l'uitcr's Tables.
AFRICAN COMMERCE. 309
all extremely valuable, and in great demand, but
obtained at comparatively little labour and cost.
So small an amount of exports from a country so
full of mineral and vegetable wealth, either shows
the extreme ignorance and indolence of the people,
or the total want of security both to person and pro-
perty which exists in consequence of the Slave Trade.
All the authorities which are accessible, clearly show
that the latter is the true cause why the commerce
between Africa and the civilised world, is so trifling ;
and there is one remarkable fact which corroborates
it, namely, that nearly all the legitimate trade with
central Africa is effected through the medium of
those stations which have been established by the
British and French governments on its coasts, and
in and around which the trade in slaves has either
been greatly checked, or has totally disappeared.
But limited as the commerce of Africa is at pre-
sent with the civilised world, and infamous as one
part of that commerce has been, it is capable of being
indefinitely increased, and of having a character im-
pressed on it, alike honourable to all parties engaged
in it. The advantages which would accrue to Africa,
in the development of her resources, the civilisation
of her people, and the destruction of one of the greatest
evils which has ever afflicted or disgraced mankind, —
not less than the benefits which would be secured to
Europe in opening new marts for her produce and
new fields for her commercial enterprise- — would be
incalculable.
310 THE REMEDY.
What can we do to bring about this consummation ?
It is in our 'power to encourage her commerce ; — to
improve the cultivation of her soil ; — and to raise the
morals, and the mind of her inhabitants. This is all
that we can do ; but this done, the Slave Trade can-
not continue.
The first question, then, to be considered is, in
what way can we give an impulse to the commerce
of Africa? I apprehend that, for this purpose, little
more is necessary than to provide security, and convey
a sense of security : without this, there can be no
traffic : this alone, with such resources as Africa pos-
sesses, will cause legitimate commerce to spring up
and thrive of itself; it wants no more than leave to
grow. Nothing short of so monstrous an evil as the
Slave Trade could have kept it down.
Its natural productions* and commercial re-
* Productions. — Animals. — Oxen, sheep, goats, pigs, &c,
&c, Guinea fowls, common poultry, ducks, &c.
Grain. — Rice, Indian corn, Guinea corn, or millet, wheat,
Dourah, &c.
Fruits. — Oranges, lemons, guavas, pines, citrons, limes, pa-
paws, plantains, bananas, dates, . &c, &c.
Roots. — Manioc, igname, batalee, yams, arrow-root, ginger,
sweet potato, &c, &c.
Timber.. — Teak, ebony, lignum viae, and forty or fifty other
species of wood for all purposes.
Nuts. — Palm-nut, shea-nut, cocoa-nut, cola-nut, ground-nut,
castor-nut, netta-nut, &c, &c.
Dyrs. — Carmine, yellow various shades, blue, orange various
sliades, red, crimson, brown, &c.
Dye woods. — Cam-wood, bar-wood, &c, &C.
Gums. — Copal, Senegal, mastic, sudan, &c. '
AFRICAN COMMERCE. 311
sources are inexhaustible. From the testimony of
merchants whose enterprise has, for many years past,
led them to embark capital in the African trade ; and
from the evidence furnished by the journals of tra-
vellers into the interior of the country,* we gather
Drugs. — Aloes, cassia, senna, frankincense, &c.
Minerals. — Gold, iron, copper, emery, sal-ammoniac, nitre, &c.
Sugar-cane, coffee, cotton, indigo, tobacco, India rubber, bees-
wax, ostrich feathers and skins, ivory, &c.
Fish. — Of an immense variety, and in great abundance.
Note. — The above is a very imperfect list, but it may serve to
show, at a glance, some of the riches of Africa. For all the state-
ments relating to Africa, its capabilities and productions, I have
specific authorities ; but it seems hardly necessary to quote them.
* I shall here mention some of the names of countries and
kingdoms : —
Timbuctoo, the great emporium of trade in central Africa.
The powerful kingdom of Gago, 400 Arabic miles from Tim-
buctoo to the south-east, abounds with corn and cattle. Guber,
to the east of Gago, abounds with cattle. Cano, once the famous
Ghana, abounds with corn, rice, and cattle. Cashna Agadez,
fields abound with rice, millet, and cotton. Guangara, south of
this, a region greatly abounding in gold and aromatics. Balia,
celebrated for its fine gold, four months' voyage to Timbuctoo.
Bournou, its capital very large, and inhabitants great traders.
The country very rich and fertile, and produces rice, beans, cotton,
hemp, indigo in abundance, horses, buffaloes, and horned cattle,
sheep, goats, camels, &c. Yaoorie produces abundance of rice.
The country between JR. Formosa and Adra affords the finest
prospect in the world. Inland it is healthy, and the climate good.
Trees uncommonly large and beautiful, cotton of the finest quality,
amazingly plentiful, and indigo and other dye stuffs abundant,
The Jabboos carry on great trade in grain between Benin and
Lagos. Boossa is a large emporium for trade. The place where
the people from the sea-coast meet the caravans from Barbary
to exchange their merchandise. From Boossa to Darfur there
are numerous powerful, fertile, cultivated, well-wooded, watered,
populous, and industrious states. Benin, Bournou, Dar Saley,
312 THE REMEDY.
that Nature lias scattered her bounties with the most
lavish hand ; and that what is required to make them
available to the noblest purposes is a legitimate com-
merce sustained by the government, and directed by
honourable men.
In the animal kingdom I find that, in addition to the
wild beasts which, infest its forests, and occupy its
swamps, and whose skins, &c, are valuable as an
article of commerce, immense herds of cattle, incal-
culable in number, range its plains. Hides, there-
fore, to almost any amount, may be obtained ; and
well-fed beef, of excellent quality and flavour, can be
obtained at some of our settlements, at from 2d. to
3d. per lb. There are also in various districts im-
mense flocks of sheep ; but as they are covered with
Darfur, Kashua, Houssa, Timbuctoo, Sego, Wassenah, and many
others, are populous kingdoms, abounding in metals, minerals,
fruits, grain, cattle, &c.
Atlah, on the Niger, healthy, many natural advantages, will be
a place of great importance, alluvial soil, &c. The places on the
banks of the Niger are rich in sheep, goats, bullocks, &c.
Fundah, population 30,000 ; beautiful country.
Doma, population large and industrious.
Beeshle and Jacoba, places of great trade.
Rabba, population 40,000.
Toto, population immense.
Alorie (Feletah), vast herds and flocks.
Bumbum, thoroughfare for merchants, from Houssa, Borgoo,
&c, to Gonga, vast quantity of land cultivated.
Gungo (Island), palm-trees in profusion.
Egga, two miles in length ; vast number of canoes. Egga to
BOurnou, said to be fifteen days' journey.
Tschadda, on its banks immense herds of elephants seen, from
50 to 400 at a time.
MINERALS. 313
a very coarse wool, approaching to hair, and their
flesh is not very good on the coast, it may be said, that
though numerous, they are not valuable ; their skins,
however, might form an article for export. Goats
of a very fine and large kind are equally nume-
rous, and sell at a lower price than sheep. Their
skins are valuable. Pigs can be obtained in any
numbers ; they are kept at several of the coast sta-
tions. Domestic poultry, the Guinea hen, common
fowls, ducks, &c, are literally swarming, especially
in the interior, and may be had for the most trifling
articles in barter both on the coast and inland. Fish
of all kinds visit the shores and rivers in immense
shoals, and are easily taken in great quantities during
the proper season.
The mineral kingdom has not yet been explored, but
enough is already known to show that the precious
metals abound, particularly gold. The gold-dust ob-
tained from the beds of some rivers, and otherwise pro-
duced, is, comparatively, at present, a large branch of
the African trade. It is said that gold may be procured
in the kingdom of Bambouk, which is watered by the
Felema, flowing into the Senegal, and is therefore
easily attainable in any quantity. Martin says, (vol.
iv., p. 540,) the main depositories where this metal is
traced, as it were, to its source, are two mountains,
Na Takon and Semayla. In the former, gold is very
abundant, and is found united with earth, iron, or
emery. In the latter, the gold is imbedded in hard
314 THE REMEDY.
sandstone. Numerous streams (he adds) flow from
these districts, almost all of which flow over sands
impregnated with gold. The natives, unskilled in
mining operations, have penetrated to very little depth
in these mountains. Park found the mines of the
Konkadoo hills, which he visited, excessively rich, but
very badly worked. (Chapter on gold, vol. i. pp. 454,
465, 524, and vol. ii. pp. 73, 76.) The gold which
forms the staple commodity of the Gold Coast, is
chiefly brought down from mountains of the interior.
It is said that the whole soil yields gold-dust, and
that small quantities are obtained even in the town of
Cape Coast.* There are reported to be mines within
twenty or thirty miles of the shore, but the na-
tives are very jealous of allowing Europeans to see
them.t Dupuis and Bowditch speak of the " solid
lumps of rock gold" which ornament the persons of
the cabooceers in the court of the king of Ashantee,
at Coomassie.ljl Mrs. Lee (late Mrs. Bowditch) says,
that the great men will frequently on state occasions,
so load their wrists with these lumps, that they are
obliged to support them on the head of a boy. The
largest piece she saw at Cape Coast weighed 14 oz.
and Avas very pure.§ Dupuis, on the authority of
some Mohammedans, says that a great deal of gold
comes from Gaman, and that it is the richest in
* Sierra Leone Report, 1830, p. 87. 1 lb- P- 8S -
\ Dupuis' Ashantee, p. 14 ; Bowditch's Travels, p. 35.
§ " Stories of Strange Lands"," p. (>0.
MINERALS. 315
Africa.* Gold is said to be discovered in a plain
near Houssa; and another writer (Jackson) says —
" The produce of Soudan, returned by the akka-
buahs, consists principally in gold-dust, twisted gold
rings of Wangara, gold rings made at Jinnie (which
are invariably of pure gold, and some of them of ex-
quisite workmanship) bars of gold,! &c." He also
states that gold-dust is the circulating medium at
Timbuctoo.J
Iron is found in Western Africa. The ore from
Sierra Leone is particularly rich, yielding seventy-
nine per cent., according to Mr. M'Cormack, and said
to be well adapted to making steel.§ The iron brought
from Upper Senegal, by Mollien, was found to be
of a very good quality. Berthier found it to resemble
Catalonian.|| Iron is found also near Timbuctoo, and
is manufactured by the Arabs. ^[ The discovery of this
important metal in Africa is of the utmost conse-
quence to its future prosperity, and will greatly facili-
tate the accomplishment of the object contemplated.
Early travellers relate that the mountains of Congo
are almost all ferruginous, but that the natives have
not been encouraged by Europeans to extract their
own treasures. Copper is so abundant inMayomba,
that they gather from the surface of the ground enough
for their purposes.** Sal ammoniac is found in abund-
* Dupuis, Ap. lvi. t Jackson's Timbuctoo, p. 245, 246.
J Jackson's Timbuctoo, p. 251. § Sierra Leone Report, 1830.
|| Mollien's Travels, Appendix. % Jackson's Timbuctoo, p. 24.
** Degrandpre, T. F., p. 38.
Y
316 THE REMEDY.
ance in Dagwumba, and is sold cheap in the Ash-
antee market ; nitre, emery, and trona, a species of
alkali, are found on the border of the Desert.* I
might greatly enlarge this list, from the writings of
travellers who have already visited the country, but it
will be long before its mineral wealth will be ade-
quately known.
It is not, however, to the mineral treasures of
Africa that we chiefly look ; we regard the produc-
tions of the soil as of infinitely more value, especially
those which require industry and skill in their
culture. We look to the forests, and the plains,
and the valleys, and the rich alluvial deltas, which
it would take centuries to exhaust of their fertility
aud products.
Fifty miles to the leeward of the colony, of Sierra
Leone is a vast extent of fertile ground, forming the
delta of the Seeong Boom, Kitiam and Gallinas
rivers. This ground may contain from 1,000 to 1,500
square miles of the richest alluvial soil, capable of
growing all tropical produce. According to Mr.
M'Cormack, this delta could grow rice enough for
the supply of the whole West Indies. f At present it
produces nothing but the finest description of slaves.!
*Bowditch,p. 333.
f Sierra Leone Report, No. 66, p. 64.
{ There is another large delta, formed by the rivers Nunez,
Rio Grande, and Rio Ponga. It is described as very extensive and
fertile. The Isles de Less command the mouths of these rivers.
The Rio Nunez runs parallel with the Gambia. — Mi, Laird.
soil. 317
From Cape St. Paul to Cameroon s, and from
thence to Cape Lopez, extends the richest country
that imagination can conceive. Within this space
from forty to fifty rivers of all sizes discharge their
waters into the ocean, forming vast flats of alluvial
soil, to the extent of 180,000 square miles. From
this ground at present the greatest amount of our
imports from Western Africa is produced, and to it
and the banks of the rivers that flow through it, do I
look for the greatest and most certain increase of
trade. It is a curious feature in the geography of
Africa, that so many of its great navigable rivers
converge upon this point (Laird). The extent to
which the Slave Trade is carried on in the rivers al-
luded to is immense, and offers the greatest possible
obstruction to the fair trader.
With few inconsiderable exceptions, the whole
line of coast in Western Africa, accessible to trading
vessels, presents immense tracts of land of the most
fertile character, which only require the hand of in-
dustry and commercial enterprise to turn them into
inexhaustible mines of wealth.
But it is not to the coast alone that the merchant
may look for the results of his enterprise. The
interior is represented as equally fertile with the
coast ; and it is the opinion of the most recent travel-
lers, as well as of those who preceded them, that if
the labourer were allowed to cultivate the soil in
security the list of productions would embrace all
y2
318 THE REMEDY.
the marketable commodities imported from the East
and West Indies.
Between Kacunda and Egga, both large towns on
the Niger, the country is described as very fertile, and
from Egga to Rabbah, where the river is 3,000 yards
wide, the right bank is represented to consist of ex-
tensive tracts of cultivated land, with rich and beau-
tiful plains stretching as far as the eye can reach
(Laird). The country does not deteriorate as we
ascend the river. We have the testimony of Park,
corroborated by Denham and Clapperton, in support
of this statement, and their remarks embrace both
sides of the river. The country surrounding Cape
Palmas, the Gambia, the Senegal, the Shary, the
Congo, presents to the eye of the traveller unlimited
tracts of the most fertile portion of the earth.
The woods of this continent are extremely valuable.
Travellers enumerate not less than forty species of
timber, which grow in vast abundance, and are easily
obtained ; such as mahogany, teak, ebony, lignum
vitee, rosewood, &c.
While Colonel Nicolls was stationed at Fernando
Po, he gives this account of its timber, in a letter to
Mr. Secretary Hay. I extract the passage as a spe-
cimen of the nature of African forests. He says
that some of the trees are ten feet in diameter, and
120 feet in height. — " Twenty men have been for a
period of eight days cutting down one tree of these
dimensions, for tlie purpose of making a canoe : it
TIMBER. 319
was quite straight, without a branch; the wood
white in colour, close in grain, and very hard. I
have no name for it, but it very much resembles the
lignum vitee, except in colour. The canoe cut out
of it is five feet within the gunwales, forty feet long,
and carries about twenty tons safely, drawing but
eight inches water. We have also a very fine de-
scription of red wood, close-grained, strong, and good
for beams, sheathing, ribs, and deck-planking of the
heaviest vessels of war. We could send home stern-
posts and stems, in one piece, for the largest ships.
This wood seems to have a grain something between
mahogany and oak : when cut thin to mend boats,
it will not split in the sun, and when tapped or cut
down, exudes a tough resinous gum, is very lasting,
and not so heavy as teak or oak, takes a fine polish,
and I think it a very valuable wood. There is
another hard-wood tree of very large dimensions, the
wood strong and good, in colour brown and white-
streaked ; it also exudes, when cut, a strong gum,
which I think would be valuable in commerce.
Another, which we call the mast-tree, from the cir-
cumstance of its being very tall and straight, is in
colour and grain like a white pine. We have,
besides the above-mentioned trees, many which are
smaller, but very useful, their wood being hard,
tough, and of beautifully variegated colours ; some
are streaked brown and white, like a zebra, others of
black, deep red, and brown."
. In a despatch, 1832, Colonel Nicolls further
320 THE REMEDY.
states, that he has Commodore Hayes' authority for
saying, that there never was finer wood for the pur-
poses of ship-building.*
Of dye-woodsf there are also abundance, yielding
* Desp. p. 5; Colonial Records, 1832.
t Many beautiful kinds of wood have been discovered by acci-
dent amongst the billets of firewood, brought home in the slave-
ships to Liverpool. Mr. Clarkson gives the following anecdote in
his " Impolicy of the Slave Trade." After mentioning the tulip-
wood and others, found in this manner, he says: — " About the
same time in which this log was discovered (a. d. 178*7), another
wood vessel, belonging to the same port, brought home the speci-
men of the bark of a tree, that produced a very valuable yellow
dye, and far beyond any other ever in use in this country. The
virtues of it were discovered in the following manner : — A gentle-
man, resident upon the coast, ordered some wood to be cut down
to erect a hut. While the people were felling it he was stand-
ing by : during the operation some juice flew from the bark of it,
and stained one of the ruffles of his shirt. He thought that the
stain would have washed out, but, on wearing it again, found that
the yellow spot was much more bright and beautiful than before,
and that it gained in lustre every subsequent time of washing.
Pleased with the discovery, which he knew to be of so much im-
portance to the manufacturers of Great Britain, and for which a
considerable premium had been offered, he sent home the bark
noAV mentioned as a specimen. He is since unfortunately dead,
and little hopes are to be entertained of falling in with this
tree again, unless a similar accident should discover it, or a
change should take place in our commercial concerns with
Africa. I shall now mention another valuable wood, which,
like all those that have been pointed out, was discovered
by accident in the same year. Another wood vessel, belonging
to the same port, was discharging her cargo ; among the barwood
a small billet was discovered, the colour of which was so superior
to thai of the rest, as to lead the observe* to suspect, that it was
of a very different BpecieB, though it is clear that the natives,
GUMS — NUTS. 321
carmine, crimson, red, brown, brilliant yellow, and
the various shades from yellow to orange, and a fine
blue. Of gums there are copal, Senegal mastic,
and Sudan, or Turkey gum, to be obtained in large
quantities ; and there are forests near the Gambia
where, hitherto, the gum has never been picked.
Of nuts, which are beginning to form a new and
important article of trade, there are the palm-nut,
the shea-nut, the cola-nut, the ground-nut, the castor-
nut, the nitta-nut, and the cocoa-nut. The palm-
tree grows most luxuriantly, and incalculable quan-
tities of its produce are allowed to rot on the ground
for want of gathering ; yet it is now the most im-
portant branch of our commerce with Africa,
and may be increased to any extent. The oil ex-
pressed from its nut is used in the manufacture
of soap and candles, and in lubricating ma-
chinery. The shea, or butter-nut,* is scarcely less
by cutting it of the same size and dimensions, and by bringing it
on board at the same time, had, on account of its red colour, mis-
taken it for the other. One half of the billet was cut away in expe-
riments. It was found to produce a colour that emulated the
carmine, and was deemed to be so valuable in the dyeing trade, that
an offer was immediately made of sixty guineas per ton for any
quantity that could be procured. The other half has been since
sent back to the coast, as a guide to collect more of the same
sort, though it is a matter of doubt whether, under the circum-
stances that have been related, the same tree can be ascertained
again." — p. 9.
* The butter is prepared by boiling," and besides the ad-
vantage of keeping a whole year without salt, it is " whiter,
firmer, and, to my palate," says Park (vol. i. p. 302), " of a richer
322 THE REMEDY.
valuable than the palm-nut. Some travellers inform
their readers that it is an excellent substitute for
butter, and can be appropriated to the same uses
with the palm-oil. It is a remarkable fact, in the
natural history of these trees, that immediately
where the one ceases to yield its fruit, the other
flourishes abundantly. The ground-nut* is becom-
ing also a valuable article of commerce ; and this
with the other nuts mentioned, yield a rich supply of
oil and oil-cake for the use of cattle. The value of
the castor-nut, as an article of medicine, needs not
be particularly adverted to. The roots which grow in
Africa require generally but little attention in their
cultivation ; among others, there are the follow-
ing: — The manioc, yams, sweet potatoes, arrow-
flavour than the best butter I ever tasted made of cow's milk."
The shea-tree, which produces it, is said to extend over a large
part of the continent, from Jaloof to Gaboon. " It has been ana-
lysed by the French chemist, M. Chevreuil, and found well adapted
for the manufacture of soap. Being inodorous and highly capable
of taking a perfume, it would be valuable for the finer sorts." —
Mrs. Lee, Stories of Strange La?ids,Y>. 26.
* The gromid-nut yields a pure golden-coloured oil, of a plea-
sant taste, and has been sold here at 56/. per ton. From 750 to
1000 tons are produced on the Gambia; but these nuts appear
plentiful along the whole coast, arc often mentioned by Park, and
were noticed by Denham, as very abundant near the lake Tchad.
It grows in a soil too light and sandy for corn — its stalks afford
fodder for cattle — it sells at six shillings per gallon, and is as good
as sperm-oil. The castor-nut also grows wild in great abundance
on the banks of the Gambia, and elsewhere.
FRUITS — GRAIN. 323
root, and ginger :* the two latter are exportable,
and the former yield a large amount of healthful
and nutritious food. Yams can be so improved
by cultivation that, at Fernando Po, Captain Bullen
says, many weigh from fifteen to twenty-five pounds,
and in taste almost equal a potato. On one occa-
sion he bought upwards of four tons for seventy-
six iron hoops ; and says, " The nourishment derived
from them to my people was beyond belief."! The
fruits are oranges, lemons, citrons, limes, pines,
guavas, tamarinds, paw-paws, plantains and bana-
nas. The paw-paw and plantain trees (says Ash-
mun) are a good example of the power of an uni-
formly-heated climate to accelerate vegetation. You
may see in the gardens many of the former, not
more than fifteen months from the seed, already fif-
teen inches round the stem, and fifteen feet high,
with several pecks of ripening fruit. Clear your
lands, plant your crops, keep the weeds down, and
the most favourable climate in the world, alone,
under the direction of a bountiful Providence, will
do more for you than all your toil and care
could accomplish in America."! Tamarinds are
* The ginger of Africa is particularly fine, and high flavoured ;
it yields ahout sixty for one ; and the people only want instruction
in the method of preparing it for European markets.— Denham y
Desp., 2lst May, 1827 ; Sierra Leone Report, 1830, No. 57,
p. 30.
t Captain Bullen's Desp., November, 1826.
X Ashmun's Life, Ap. p. 66.
324 THE REMEDY.
exportable. Of grain, there is rice, Indian
corn, Guinea corn, or millet, &c. The quantities
of these can be raised to any extent, and be
limited only by demand.* The Rev. W. Fox, the
Missionary, says, in his MS. Journal, August 22,
1836 — " This afternoon I visited Laming, a small
Mandingotown (above Macarthy's Island). I could
scarcely get into the town for the quantity of Indian
corn with which it is surrounded ; upon a very
moderate calculation, and for a very small portion
of labour, which generally devolves upon the poor
women, [they reap upwards of two hundred fold."
I am informed that Madeira wholly depends on
the maize raised in Africa, and that the rice pro-
duced there, when properly dried and prepared, is
equal to that grown in South Carolina. Of drugs,
there are aloest and cassia, senna, frankincense, car-
damums, and grains of paradise, or Malagetta pep-
per. Amongst the miscellaneous products, which
* " Nothing can be more delightful than a stroll along the
borders of the beautiful fields, winding occasionally along
almost impervious clusters of young palms, whose spreading
branches exclude every ray of the scorching sun, then opening
suddenly on an immense rice-field of the most delicate pea-green,
skirted by the beautiful broad-leaved plantain and banana, 'lite-
rally groaning under the immense, masses of their golden fruit."
Dr. J. Hall, Governor of Liberia. Missionary Register, 1836,
p. 360.
t A new use of the aloe plant has been discovered in the
beautiful tissue and cordage manufactured from its fibres, by M.
Pavy, of Paris. The fihres of the palm and banana-trees are also
wrought by him into glossy stuffs.
MISCELLANEOUS PRODUCTS. 325
are in great demand in this country, may be enume-
rated ivory, bees'-wax, caoutchouc, or Indian-rubber.
The former of these articles will, of course, suffer a
gradual diminution as the forests are cut down, the
swamps, drained, and the plains cultivated ; but of
the latter scarcely any diminution need be appre-
hended. The bees'-wax of Africa is in great
repute, and can be had in any quantity ; and the
great price freely given for Indian-rubber might be
a sufficient inducement to lead the African to pay
more attention to its collection. Of this Mr. Ran-
kin says,* describing what he saw in an excursion
amongst the Timmanese, — " A large lump of In-
dian-rubber (caoutchouc) lay on the table, also the
produce of Tombo. This article, at present ac-
quiring a high value amongst our importations, is
not there made _ an article of commerce, Like al-
most every other produce of the neighbourhood of
Sierra Leone, it is scarcely known to exist, or is
entirely neglected. It grows plentifully, and may
be easily obtained by making incisions into the tree,
from which it flows like cream, into calabashes tied
underneath ; it hardens within a few hours."
Mr. Elliot Cresson, examined before the American
Committee on the Foreign Slave Trade, February,
1839, stated, in answer to the question, — " What
will be the commercial and political advantages to
the United States, from an intercourse with the
colony of Liberia 1 " " Among the valuable articles
* Rankin's Sierra Leone, vol. ii. p. 218.
326 THE REMEDY.
of export, wax and spices are obtained in large quan-
tities in our colony. The India-rubber tree grows
wild in the neighbouring woods, and ostrich feathers
have been exported largely. Hides could be obtained
in any quantities ; so could rosewood, lancewood, and
palmwood, and live oak of the best quality. One
merchant in Philadelphia last year imported from
the colony a quantity of pea or ground nuts, from
which he realised the profit of 12,000 dollars. Cot-
ton, of a very good staple, is found there, and culti-
vated with great advantage, as there is no frost there.
And the articles desired in return are those produced
by American manufactures and agriculture." — Co-
lonization Herald, March, 1839, p. 124.
Ashmun, who seems to have had a clear view of
the interest of the Liberian settlers, writes to them
thus : — " Suffer me to put down two or three remarks,
of the truth and importance of which you cannot be
too sensible. The first is, that the cultivation of your
rich lands is the only way you will ever find out to
independence, comfort, and wealth." " You may, if
you please, if God gives you health, become as inde-
pendent, comfortable, and happy as you ought to be
in this world." " The flat lands around you, and
particularly your farms, have as good a soil as can be
met with in any country. They will produce two
crops of corn, sweet potatoes, and several other vege-
tables, in a year. They will yield a larger crop than
the best soils in America. And they will produce a
number of very valuable articles, for which in the
MISCELLANEOUS PRODUCTS. 327
United States, millions of money are every year paid
away to foreigners. One acre of rich land, well
tilled, will produce you three hundred dollars' worth
of indigo. Half an acre may be made to grow half
a ton of arrow-root. Four acres laid out in coffee-
plants, will, after the third year, produce you a clear
income of two or three hundred dollars. Half an
acre of cotton-trees will clothe your whole family ;
and, except a little hoeing, your wife and children
can perform the whole labour of cropping and manu-
facturing it. One acre of canes will make you inde-
pendent of all the world for the sugar you use in your
family. One acre set with fruit-trees, and well at-
tended, will furnish you the year round with more
plantains, bananas, oranges, limes, guavas, papaws,
and pine-apples, than you will ever gather. Nine
months of the year, you may grow fresh vegetables
every month, and some of you who have lowland
plantations, may do so throughout the year." *
I must also quote the authority of Denis de
Montfort, a Frenchman of science, who in a paper
on the gold of the Coast of Guinea, inserted in the
" Philosophical Magazine," thus writes : — " There
exists no country in the world so susceptible of
general cultivation as Africa : we know that certain
districts are fertile in corn ; and grain of every kind
grows there, intermixed with sugar-canes lately in-
troduced, and which protect the grain from hail.
The plants of India, Europe, America, and Australia
* Ashmun's Life, Ap., p. 64.
328 THE REMEDY.
will flourish there in perpetual spring, and the ani-
mals of all climates can be easily naturalised. The
negroes, whose respect for the whites is extreme,
notwithstanding what they have suffered from them,
will cheerfully give up their fields to be cultivated by
them. Servants, and even slaves, will not be wanting,
and this will be a true method of preventing these
nations from massacring their prisoners of war, as
the king of Dahomey does at the present moment.
May our feeble voices on this subject reach the ear of
royalty ! *
It is almost impossible to turn to any book of
African travels, without meeting with some incidental
observations upon the fertility of the soil. I should
have supposed that nothing of this kind would have
occurred in the narrative of Captain Paddock ; yet he
says : — " On the south was seen a very extensive
country, abounding with little enclosed cities, large
fields of grain, and productive gardens. In short,
though the climate here is dry as well as hot, such is
the great fertility of the soil, that it is capable of pro-
ducing abundantly all the necessaries and most of the
luxuries of life. What might it be under the culti-
vation of a civilised, industrious, and skilful people !|
" We made choice of a wheat-field, which lay but
a few hundred yards from us ; and we had entered it
but a few paces when we found ourselves completely
hidden, even while standing erect. Although my
mate was five feet eleven inches in height, and myself
* Annual Register, 1815, p. 542. t P. 289.
FERTILITY. 329
five feet ten, the heads of the wheat were above our
own. This was the finest piece of wheat I ever saw ;
it was all well headed ; and had we not gone among
it, and took its measure, we should have known it
was very tall, though we never could have told how
tall." *
It is observed by Brown, in his botanical appen-
dix to " Tuckey's Voyage " (pp. 342-3), that from
the river Senegal, in about 16° north latitude, to the
Congo, in upwards of 6° south latitude, there is a
remarkable uniformity in the vegetation of Western
Africa — a fact which gives us promise of extending
to any amount, our commerce in such vegetable pro-
ductions as have already obtained a sale in Europe
or America. Thus a tree which characterises nearly
the whole range of coast, is the Elais Guineensis, or
oil-palm, one of the most valuable to commerce. This
grows in the greatest abundance in the delta of the
Niger. There " the palm-nut now rots on the ground
unheeded and neglected," over an extent of surface
equal to the whole of Ireland. (Laird, vol. ii. p. 362.)
The whole extent, too, of the Timmanee, and a
great part . of Koranko, through which Captain
Laing passed in 1822, was absolutely bristled with
palm-trees, which, at the time he went up the coun-
try (April and May), were bearing luxurious crops
of nuts. " There is no known instance, or any ap-
parent danger, of a failure on the part of all-bounti-
ful nature in supplying the fruit : on the contrary, it
* P. 181.
330 THE REMEDY.
is the opinion of Captain Laing, that were the popu-
lation double, and had they all the industry we could
wish, they would not be able to reap the abundant
harvest annually presented to them."*
The soil of Africa produces indigenously nearly
all the useful plants which are common to other tro-
pical countries, and some of them in greater perfec-
tion than they are to be found elsewhere.
There are some articles that require more notice :
Hemp grows wild on tlie Gambia, and only re-
quires a better mode of preparation to make it a
valuable article of import. The same may be said
of tobacco. Indigo grows so freely in Africa, that,
in some places, it is difficult to eradicate it. " Im-
mense quantities of indigo, and other noxious weeds,"
spring up in the streets of Freetown. t
It is known to grow wild as far inland as the
Tchad, and even with the rude preparation bestowed
by the natives, gives a beautiful dye to their cloths. J
Coffee is another indigenous shrub, which well
repays cultivation. When Kizell, a Nova Scotian,
first observed it near the Sherbro, he pulled up two
or three plants, and showed them to the people,
who said that they thought it was good for nothing,
but to fence their plantations. It was all over the
country, and in some places nothing else was to be
* Sierra Leone Gaz., Dec. 14, 1822.
t Despatch, Mr. Smart to Sir G. Murray, 1828; Sierra Leone
Report, No. 57, p. 30.
I Denham's Travels, p. 246.
COFFEE. 331
seen * Even in a wild state it seems to repay the
trouble of gathering, for the Commissioners at Sierra
Leone, in their Annual Report, of date 1st January,
1838, inform us " that the Foulahs have been in-
duced, by the fair traders of the river Nunez to
bring down for sale to them a quantity of coffee, of
a very superior quality, the produce of the forests of
their own country." An extract of a letter, which
they enclose, observes that "one great advantage of
peaceful commerce with the natives is, that valuable
productions of their country are brought to light
by our research, sometimes to their astonishment."
Thus, till within the last two years, this abundant
growth of coffee was " left to be the food of mon-
keys," but is now a source of profit to the natives
and to our own merchants. A small quantity has
been cultivated, both at Sierra Leone and the Gold
Coast; and Ashmun (Life, Ap., p. 78) states that,
in Liberia, no crop is surer ; that African coffee fre-
quently produces four pounds to the tree, and that
the berries attain a size unknown elsewhere. I air
happy to learn that above 10,000 lbs. of African
coffee were imported into this country in 1837, that its
quality was excellent, and that it fetched a good price. f
* Afr. Inst 6 Report, Ap.
t Mr. M'Queen says, that the old Arabian traveller Batouta, -who
nad visited China, states, that in the interior parts of Africa, along
the Niger, which he visited, the tea-plant grew abundantly. —
M'Queen's Africa, p. 218. Dr. M'Leod, describing the kingdom
of Benin, says—" In the opinion of one of the latest governors
Z
332 THE REMEDY.
Sugar-canes grow spontaneously in several parts
of Africa ; and when cultivated, as they are in va-
rious places, for the sake of the juice, they become
very large. The expense of the necessary ma-
chinery alone seems to have hitherto prevented the
manufacture of sugar ;*
I now come to the article which demands the
largest share of our attention, viz. cotton ; because
it requires little capital, yields a steady return, is in
vast demand in Europe, and grows naturally in the
soil of Africa.
As this last is a point of vital importance, I think
it necessary to furnish a portion of the evidence I
have collected as to the luxuriant and spontaneous
growth of cotton in Africa : —
Sir Fulk Grevell making, by order of Queen
Elizabeth, a report to Sir Francis Walsingham on
a memorial of certain merchant adventures : — " Sir,
You demaunde of me the names of such kings as are
absolute in the East, and either have wan\ or traf-
fique w th the kinge of Spaigne." * * * *
" Then followeth kingdoms of Gaulata, Tombuto,
and Melly ; whereof the rirste is poore, and hath
smal traffique ; the aeconde populous, and rich in
we have had, on the establishment in this country (Mr. James),
and one whose general knowledge of Africa is admitted to be
considerable, the tea-tree flourishes spontaneously here." —
M'Leod's Voyage to Africa, p. 18.
* A company has been established at Monrovia, with a small
capital, For the experiment. — Col. Herald, November, l> w .">7
COTTON. 333
come and beasts, but wanteth salte, w cl1 the Por-
tugal supplieth ; the last hath store of corne, flesh,
and cotten ivoll, w ch are carried into Spaigne in
great abundance." Quoted by Mr. Bruce, from a
M.S. in the State Paper Office — Annals of the East
India Company, vol. i., p. 121.
Beaver says, " Of the vegetables that are wild, the
sugar-cane, cotton- shrub, and indigo-plant, seem the
most valuable : no country in the world is more amply
enriched than this is with the chief productions of the
animal and vegetable kingdoms."
Mr. Dalrymple, who was at Goree in 1779, states,
" that there are three different kinds of cotton ; that
samples sent home were considered by English mer-
chants superior to that from the West Indies. It
grows spontaneously almost everywhere, though it is
sometimes cultivated. "*
Cotton, says Col. Denham, grows wild about Sierra
Leone, of three kinds, white, brown, and pink ; the
first is excellent. f He also " found it wild on the
Tschadda."t
Clapperton, saw some "beautiful specimens" of
the African looms in the interior. §
Park|] observes, almost every slave can weave.
* Evid. Slave Trade Com., 1790, p. 297.
t Col. Denham, Rep. Sierra Leone, Sess. 1830, No. 57, p. 16.
\ Denham's Travels, p. 317.
§ Clapperton, p. 5.
|| Park, vol. i. p. 429.
z 2
334 THE REMEDY.
Ashmun* says, it is believed that none of the va-
rieties of the American cotton-shrub answers, in all
respects, to the indigenous African tree. The cotton
of this country is on all hands allowed to be of a good
quality, and the mode of growing, curing, and manu-
facturing the article pursued in America may be
adopted here, making due allowance for the much
greater size and duration of the African tree.
Lander says, " From Badagry to Saccatoo, the cot-
ton-plant, indigo, &c, are cultivated to a great
extent."
Laird says, "The increase of trade from the interior
would, I think, consist chiefly of palm-oil, raw cot-
ton, shea-butter, rice, and bees'-wax. These articles
would, I think, be indefinitely increased."
The Rev. John Pinney,t an American missionary,
says, " The crops of coffee, pepper, and cotton ex-
ceed all that could be boasted of in the United
States."
And the Rev. J. Seys]. speaks of the "excellent
cotton" of the St. Paul's River.
I might, if it were necessary, multiply these proofs
almost indefinitely, by references to M'Queen, Burck-
hardt, De Caille, Dupuis, Robertson, &c.
It has been my endeavour, throughout the whole
of this work, to take nothing for granted, and to
* Ashmun's Life, App., p. 76.
1 Coloniz. Soc. Rep., quoted in Miss. Reg. for 1836, p. '22.
1 Ibid.
CULTIVATION OF COTTON. 335
prove, as I proceeded, all that I stated. It cannot be
necessary, however, to stop for the purpose of esta-
blishing the vast importance to Great Britain of an
additional market for the purchase of raw cotton. In
our cotton-trade, there are about twenty millions of
fixed, and twenty millions of floating capital invested.
The total yearly produce of the manufacture amounts
to forty millions. One million five hundred thousand
persons earn their bread by it.
Africa is capable of yielding this necessary article :
it is as near to us as North America ; nearer than the
Brazils ; two-thirds nearer to us than India. The
vast tropical districts along the southern side of the
Great Desert, the fine plains, and gently-rising country
from the northern bank of the Rio de Formosa, and
from the Niger to the base of the Kong mountains,
are adapted to the culture and production of the finest
cotton. This portion of Africa alone, so rich in soil,
so easy of access, offers an independent and abun-
dant supply of that article, the want of which impedes
and oppresses our manufacturing prosperity. But if
Africa, when delivered from that evil which withers
her produce, and paralyzes her industry, can be made
to supply us Avith the commodity which we so much
need, she, in her turn, will be the customer of Europe
to the same vast extent, for the manufactured goods
which Europe produces. If it be true that inter-
course with Africa, of an honest description, would
be twice blessed_, — a blessing to the nation who con-
336 THE REMEDY.
fers, and to the continent which receives, cultivation
and commerce, — nothing can exceed the folly (ex-
cept the wickedness) of a system, which annually
sweeps off nearly half a million of the inhabitants of
Africa, and consigns, by its inhuman butcheries, one
of the fairest portions of the earth to the sterility of a
wilderness.
But it may be said, that though the land might be
made to produce cotton, centuries must elapse before
it can be made to yield any quantity of that article.
I do not pretend to say that this will be suddenly
accomplished ; but an anecdote which I heard stated
to the Marquis of Normanby, by a gentleman whose
mercantile knowledge would not be disputed by
any one, may serve to forbid despair. He stated
that the person who first imported from America a
bale of cotton into this country was still alive, that the
person to whom it was consigned in Liverpool was
still alive, and that the custom-house officer at that
place refused to admit it at the lower rate of duty,
because, to his knowledge, no cotton could be grown
in America ; yet that country which could grow no
cotton, now, besides supplying her own demand, and
that of all other countries, sends annually to Great Bri-
tain a quantity valued at about £15,000,000 sterling.
I propose, then, that an effort shall be made to cul-
tivate districts of Africa, selected for that purpose,
in order that her inhabitants may be convinced of the
AGRICULTURE. 337
capabilities of their soil, and witness what wonders
may be accomplished by their own labour when set in
motion by our capital, and guided by our skill.
There is no doubt that mercantile settlements
would effect a considerable measure of good ; but
the good is distant, and will be effected by slow de-
grees, while the condition of Africa is such, that the
delay of a single year carries with it a world of
misery, and the certain destruction of a multitude of
lives.
I confess that I think it would be well, on many
grounds, if we could, to confine ourselves to the esta-
blishment of factories. I fear, however, that this
limitation would retard, if not defeat, our objects.
We should touch Africa at a few prominent points,
— at each of these, a mart might be established, and
something might be done towards the education of
the children of those who entered our service. But
the evil is gigantic, and it requires gigantic efforts to
arrest it. I believe, — and every word that I have read
or heard on the subject confirms me in the impres-
sion, — that Africa has, within herself, resources,
which, duly developed, Avould compensate for the
gains of the Slave Trade, if these were twenty times
as great as they are. But it must never be forgotten
that these resources are nothing, unless they are fairly
and fully called into action.
Factories on the coast may lead the natives to
gather the spontaneous productions of nature. They
may supply us with wood, with palm-oil, with skins,
338 THE REMEDY.
and with ivory ; but beyond the money or the goods
paid for these, and beyond occasional and very lax
employment to the natives, Africa would gain little.
No habits of settled industry will be inspired ; no
examples will be placed before those, the avenue to
whose understanding is through the eyes; and who,
however slow they may be to reason, are quick to
perceive, and intelligent to imitate.
I have already said, that two things must be
achieved, or we shall fail : the one is, to call forth
and elevate the native mind ; the other is, to provide a
larger source of revenue than that derived from the
trade in man.
By agriculture — both will be accomplished. The
ransom for Africa will be found in her fertile soil ; and
the moral worth of her people will advance as they
become better instructed, more secure, more indus-
trious, and more wealthy. And then will be felt the
influence of cultivated intellect on rude reason ; the
children will be taught by our schools; our very
machinery, doing easily what is impossible to their
unaided strength, will eloquently speak to others, and
beget that allegiance of mind, which is uniformly
yielded by the untutored, to beings of superior capa-
city. The ministers of the gospel, the best of civil-
izers, will, as gently as irresistibly, work out a change
in the current of opinion, and effect the cheerful re-
nunciation of bloody and licentious customs.
Such essential reforms as these cannot lie expected
from the mere establishment of factories on the coast,
AGRICULTURE. 339
Something, no doubt, will be gained by these, but not
enough, to execute the task (of all tasks the most diffi-
cult) of giving an impulse to the slumbering ener-
gies of the people, and making productive the latent
capabilities of the soil. In one word, Africa wants
more than commerces — he wants cultivation.
If cultivation be required, it becomes at once desir-
able that we should afford to the natives the benefit
of our experience and skill — our example and capital.
Why should the African be left to work his way
upwards, from his rude and unprofitable tillage, to
that higher order of cultivation, which we have
reached by the labours of successive generations ?
Our discoveries in tropical agriculture must work a
great physical change. It is probable, that we might
reclaim a waste district in half the time, and at half
the expense, that it would cost the inhabitants.
But I look also, as I have already hinted, to the
moral effect which will hence be produced. Those
of old, who carried the spade and the plough into bar-
barous countries were ranked with the deities.
By our seeds, and our implements, and our skill
in abridging labour and subduing difficulty, we
shall place before the natives, in a form which they
cannot mistake, the vast benefits they are likely to
derive from intercourse with us ; and they will speed-
ily perceive, that it is their interest to protect those
strangers who possess secrets, which can make their
land produce so unexpected and rich a harvest.
It is quite clear that the present commercial
340 THE REMEDY.
intercourse between this country and Africa is
extremely limited ; that the chief obstacle to its
extension is the prevalence of the Slave Trade,* and
* The imports of palm-oil have diminished during four late
years, as may be seen by the following returns, viz. : —
Cwts.
1834 . . . 269,901
1835 . . . 234,882
1836 . . . 236,195
1837 . . . 201,906
This diminution has arisen, not in consequence of a decrease in
the demand for the article, but on account of the extension of the
Slave Trade on the coast, and the increased difficulty of procuring
a supply.
" The industry of the natives, in a great degree, is stifled by the
Slave Trade ; and, though a good deal of oil is prepared and sold,
the English traders, loading at the mouth of the river, are often
interrupted, and obliged to wait, to the loss of profit and the ruin
of the crew's health, while a smuggling slaver takes all hands on
the coast to complete her cargo." — Laird.
" When there is a demand for slaves the natives abandon every
other employment ; and the consequence is, that the British vessels
trading on the coast are lying idle for want of trade.
" In consequence of the great demand for slaves, the natives
here and in the interior abandon cultivation, the trees go to de-
struction, and no young trees are planted.
" At one place in Africa where a very considerable quantity of
palm-oil has been annually supplied to the ships of our merchants,
the Spanish and Portuguese have latterly so much increased the
Slave Trade, that the cultivation of the palm-trees, which was
giving occupation to thousands, has not only become neglected,
but the native chiefs have been incited to blind revenge ngainsl
British influence, and have set fire to and destroyed 30,000 palm
trees.'' — Recent Letters frum Africa.
AGRICULTURE. 341
that it might be indefinitely increased under the fos-
tering and protective care of the British government.
The grounds on which this supposition rests are the
number and situation of its navigable rivers ; its
rich alluvial deltas, and extensive and fertile plains ;
its immense forests ; its wide range of natural pro-
ductions; its swarming, active, and enterprising po-
pulation ; its contiguity to Europe, and the demand
of its people for the manufactures of this country.
In speculating on African commerce, it should be
borne in mind that we have to deal with nations
who are not only ignorant and uncivilised, but cor-
rupted and deteriorated by the Slave Trade, and by in-
tercourse with the worst class of Europeans. There
will, therefore, be difficulties and obstructions to
overcome before a clear field for honest commerce
can be obtained. In the present state of the people
we can hardly look to obtain from them articles
which depend on an extensive cultivation of the soil,
so as to compete with the productions of civilised
nations. It is probable that in commencing an ex-
tensive intercourse with Africa, there will be at first
a considerable outlay of money without an immediate
return ; but from whatever source this may be ob-
tained, it should be considered as a gift to Africa
It will ultimately be repaid a thousand-fold.
The articles desired by the Africans in return for
the produce of their country are too many to enume-
rate. Lists of them are given by almost every tra-
veller. It may, therefore, suffice to observe, that
342 THE REMEDY.
many of them are the produce or manufactures of
our island, or of our colonies ; and it is an important
consideration, that we may obtain the treasures of this
unexplored continent, by direct barter of our own
commodities, and that, while we cheapen luxuries
at home, Ave also increase the means of obtaining
them, by giving increased employment to our pro-
ductive classes.
The extension of a legitimate commerce, and with it
the blessings of civilisation and Christianity, is worthy
the most strenuous exertions of the philanthropist,
whilst to the mercantile and general interests of the
civilised world it is of the highest importance. Africa
presents an almost boundless tract of country, teem-
ing with inhabitants who admire, and are desirous of
possessing our manufactures. There is no limit to
the demand, except their want of articles to give us
in return. They must be brought to avail themselves
of their own resources.
Attempts, as we have seen, have already been
made to form cotton plantations, and the article pro-
duced is found to be of a very useful and valuable
description. Perseverance in these efforts is alone
required to accomplish the object in view, and, when
once accomplished, the importance to this country
will be incalculable. The trade in palm-oil is capable
of immense extension, and the article is every year
becoming more important and in more extensive
u.se. In exchange for these, and many other valuable
articles, British manufactures would be taken, and
BENEFIT TO AFRICA. 343
British ships find a profitable employment in the
conveyance of them.
It so happens that a considerable proportion of the
goods which best suit the taste of the natives of Africa,
consists of fabrics to which power-looms cannot be
applied with any advantage. Any extension, then,
of the trade to Africa, will have this most important
additional advantage, that it will cause a correspond-
ing increase in the demand for the labour of a class
of individuals who have lately been truly represented
as suffering greater privations than any other set of
workmen connected with the cotton trade.
But the first object of our intercourse with Africa
should be, not so much to obtain a remunerating
trade, as to repair in some measure the evil that the
civilised world has inflicted on her, by conveying
Christianity, instruction, and the useful arts to her
children. The two objects will eventually, if carried
on in a right manner, be found perfectly compatible ;
for it is reasonable to seek in legitimate commerce a
direct antidote to the nefarious traffic which has so
long desolated and degraded her. We have shown
the vast variety and importance of the productions
which Africa is capable of yielding : we have already
proved that, notwithstanding the bounty of nature, the
commerce of Africa is most insignificant. Truly may
we say with Burke, " To deal and traffic — not in the
labour of men, but in men themselves — is to devour
the root, instead of enjoying the fruit of human dili-
gence."
344
CHAPTER III.
FACILITIES FOR COMMERCIAL INTERCOURSE.
I have thus stated what I conceive to be the gist of
the whole question, viz., that the deliverance of Africa
must spring, under the blessing of God, from herself,
and I have also shown, I trust to the satisfaction of
every reader, that she possesses abundant capabilities
for the purpose. The next question that arises, is,
how are these capabilities to be made available ? how
are we to obtain access to them ? Great, no doubt, are
the difficulties ; yet, such are the discoveries of the last
ten years, that we may now lay aside the impressions
of an impenetrable continent, and of interminable
wastes of sand, which have accompanied us from our
childhood. We now know that a mighty river,
which discharges itself into the Bight of Benin, by
upwards of twenty mouths, is navigable, with little
interruption, from thence nearly to its source, a
distance of more than 2,600 miles. We also learn
from the travellers who have navigated the Niger,
that there are many tributary streams, some of which,
especially the Tschadda, or Shaderbah, are equally
navigable, and afford every facility for intercourse
with the numerous nations and tribes who inhabit
the countries in their vicinity.
THE NIGER. 345
Mungo Park, in his last journey (1 805) , embarked
on the Niger at Bammakoo, about 500 miles from
its source. In his narrative he says, ■■' Having gained
the summit of the ridge which separates the Niger
from the remote branches of the Senegal, I went on
a little before, and coming to the brow of the hill, I
once more saw the Niger rolling its immense stream
along the plain." And he tells us, it is larger " even
here, than either the Senegal or the Gambia, and
full an English mile over." When preparing for
his subsequent embarkation on the Niger, he says,
" the best wood for boat-building is near Kaukaiy,
on a large navigable branch of the Niger." Park
descended the river to Boussa, where most unhap-
pily he was killed.
In 1830, Lander, who had accompanied the en-
terprising Clapperton in his last journey to Houssa,
was sent out by the British Government to explore
the Niger. He succeeded in reaching Boussa by a
land route : there he embarked on the river, and
after a voyage of about 560 miles, reached the Bight
of Benin, and thus solved the interesting problem
which had so long exercised the talents and ingenuity
of modern geographers.
Messrs. Laird and Oldfield, by the aid of steam-
vessels, went up the Niger from the Bight of Benin,
in 1832; and their journals contain much valuable
information as to that river, and its tributary, the
Tschadda. The latter, at the point of confluence, is
represented to be one mile and a half broad ; and the
346 THE REMEDY.
country on the banks of both rivers is described to
be most fertile, very populous, and, wherever there is
any security from the ravages of the Slave Trade,
highly cultivated,
Mr. Oldfield ascended the Niger to the town of
Rabbah, and he explored the Tschadda, for about
100 miles from its confluence with the Niger at Ad-
dacuddah.
They also describe several towns, Eboe, Iccory,
Iddah, Egga, Rabbah, and Fundah, proving bow
great are the facilities for trade and commerce with
the interior afforded by the river.
It is to be regretted that so little of the Tschadda
has been explored. Mr. Oldfield was informed, that
its course lay through the heart of Africa, and that
there were many large towns on its banks ; and Laird
in mentioning this river, says, " By it, a communi-
cation would be opened with all the nations inha-
biting the unknown countries between the Niger and
the Nile."
Here, then, is one of the most magnificent rivers in
the world, introducing us into the heart of Africa :
at a central point, it opens a way by its eastern
branch, to the kingdoms of Bornou, Kanem, and
Begharmi ; by its western, to Timbuctoo, — each of
them bringing us into communication with multi-
tudes of tribes, and unfolding to us the productions
of a most extensive and fertile territory.
The problem is, how shall that stream be closed to
the passage of slaves to the coast; while it is at the
FERNANDO PO. 347
same time opened as a secure and accessible highway
for legitimate commerce. The solution seems almost
self-evident : we must obtain the positions which
command the Niger ; and without doubt, the most
important of these, is Fernando Po.
Fernando Po.
I have already adverted to the importance of this
island, as being decidedly the best locality on the coast
for the reception of liberated negroes ; and for aiding
us in a great effort for the civilization of Africa. It is
situated about 20 miles from the mainland, in theBight
of Biafra, and commands the mouths of those great
streams which penetrate so deeply into central Africa,
along the coast from the Rio Volta to the Gaboon.
These rivers are about forty in number, and Fernando
Po is at the distance of from 40 to 200 miles. The
island is exceedingly fertile ; the soil is composed of
a fine deep black and brick mould : it abounds in
many species of large and fine timber, fit for orna-
mental or useful purposes ; and it is capable of pro-
ducing, in the highest perfection, not only every article
of tropical produce, but also many kinds of European
fruits and vegetables : it is 24 miles in length, and
16 miles in breadth. It has three ranges of hills,
running parallel to the north-east side ; the centre
rising into a conical volcanic mountain, to the height
of 10,000 feet above the level of the sea.
Mr. Laird thus describes its aspect : — " On my
2 A
348 THE REMEDY.
return to Fernando Po I recovered rapidly, and was
able to walk and ride about in a fortnight after my
arrival. The splendid scenery that distinguishes this
beautiful island is well known from former descrip-
tions, and to persons coming from the low marshy
shore of the main land has indescribable charms.
"The view from the galleries of the government-
house on a clear moonlight night I never saw equal-
led, nor can I conceive it surpassed. To the north-
east, the lofty peak of the Camaroons, rising to the
immense height of 14,000 feet, throws its shadow
halfway across the narrow strait that separates the
island from the main land; while the numerous
little promontories, and beautiful coves, that grace
the shores of Goderich Bay, throw light and shadow
so exquisitely upon the water, that one almost can
imagine it a fairy land. On the west, the spectator
looks down almost perpendicularly on the vessels in
Clarence Cove, which is a natural basin, surrounded
by cliffs of the most romantic shape, and a group of
little islands, which nature seems to have' thrown in,
to give a finish to the scene.
" Looking inland, towards the island, the peak is
seen, covered with wood to the summit, with its sides
furrowed with deep ravines, and here and there a
patch of cleared land, showing like a white spot in
the moonlight."
We are also informed, that, from the elevation of
3,500 feet above the level of the sea, there is always
found the climate of an European summer.
FERNANDO PO. 349
The shores are bold, and, with hardly an exception,
free from those swamps on the coasts of the main
land, around the mouths of the rivers, which generate
the fatal malaria which proves so destructive to the
health and life of Europeans. From all this Fer-
nando Po is entirely free ; while the land remains
uncleared and uncultivated, diseases, the attendants
of every tropical climate, will, to a considerable extent
prevail, but never equal to what is witnessed on the
alluvial, flooded, and swampy shores of the adjacent
continent. When, however, the land shall be cleared
and cultivated, the climate, we may reasonably expect,
will become healthy and safe for Europeans : the same
as the climate is found to be in the elevated parts of
Jamaica, and in those West Indian islands which are
cleared, cultivated, and drained, such as Barbadoes
and St. Christopher's, to the latter of which Fernando
Po bears in many points a very strong resemblance.
The putrid malaria, generated on the alluvial plains
and swamps, on the shores of the sea, and in the
neighbourhood of large rivers in the torrid zone,
never rises to any great height, probably not 400 feet
above the level of the sea at anyplace; and, conse-
quently, it is very obvious that Fernando Po would,
when cleared of the wood, afford a healthy, as well as
convenient location for any British force, or settlement,
which it may be considered necessary or advisable to
place upon it. The island, moreover, is free from
hurricanes : there are several bays which afford most
convenient access : two of these, North West Bay
2a2
350 THE REMEDY.
and Maidstone Bay, were carefully surveyed by
Commodore Bullen in 1826. He describes the latter
bay, as perfectly easy of access, and at once healthy
and very airy, the westerly wind blowing directly
across it at all times of day and night. He also says
that there is good anchorage in all parts of the bay ;
that it abounds with fish and turtle ; and that many
streams of excellent water run into it. There are
in this bay two very fine coves, where ships might lie
and refit, as smooth as in a mill-pond, combined with
the benefit of a beautiful and refreshing breeze.
Commodore Bullen further says, that if a look-out be
kept from the shore of this bay, scarcely a vessel
could leave the Bonny, Calabars, Bimbia, and Ca-
maroons rivers, without being observed time enough to
give a signal to any vessel lying in the bay to intercept
her; and he cites as an instance, the capture of a
slaver, " Le Daniel," by his own vessel. This cap-
ture was effected within four hours after first seeino-
her, although his vessel was then lying at anchor in
the bay. Commodore, now Sir Charles Bullen,
strongly recommended that a settlement should be
formed for liberated Africans in Maidstone Bay ; but
it appears that Clarence Cove was preferred. Of the
latter place we are told, that it affords the finest shelter
and anchorage for shipping ; 500 sail may there ride
in perfect safety and lie quite close to the shore. It
also abounds with excellent spring water, as in fact
the island generally does; the fine streams rushing
from the mountains to the sea, in beautiful waterfalls
FERNANDO PO. 351
and cascades, down its bold coasts. " You have not,"
said a gentleman, who had resided there nine years,
and whose testimony may be relied upon, " an island,
either in the North or South Atlantic, equal to Fer-
nando Po for shipping : a vessel may anchor there
all the year round in perfect safety."
Colonel Nichols computes the natives to amount to
about 5,000 ; and he states that, if the island were
cleared and cultivated, it could easily maintain a very
large population. He found the natives friendly,
inoffensive, and willing to work : he employed them
in clearing the ground for the British settlement at
Clarence Cove.
The Colonel speaks in high terms of the products
and capabilities of the island. The yams were the
finest he ever saw, and he introduced the cultivation
of Indian corn with complete success ; and Captain
Beatty thinks that a profitable whale fishery might
be established on the shores of Fernando Po.
Mr. Laird, in his remarks on our commerce with
Africa, observes, " My proposal is, to make the govern-
ment's head quarters at Fernando Po, which, from
its geographical position, is the key to central Africa,
and within a few miles of the great seats of our pre-
sent commerce on the coast. It is also the only
place upon the whole line of coast, on which hospitals
and other conveniences could be erected, far above
the reach of the coast fever, where invalids from the
naval, military, and civil establishments, from all
352 THE REMEDY.
parts of the coast, might recruit their health in a
pure and bracing atmosphere."*
Fernando Po therefore, in every way, and in a very
remarkable manner, possesses those advantages of
which we stand in need. Is it our object to capture
the slave-trader? Here is an island adjacent to his
chief resort, so situated as to command and control
the whole Bights of Benin and Biafra. Or is it
our object to encourage legitimate commerce ? Fer-
nando Po is at the outlet of that great stream which
offers a highway into the heart of Africa. I con-
fess, I look forward to the day, when Africa shall
unfold her hidden treasures to the world ; and as a
primary means of enabling her to do so, this island
is of incalculable value. Do we dread the climate ?
Here, and as I believe, almost here alone, on the
western coast of Africa, has nature provided a po-
sition, which enjoys the benefit of perpetual sea-
breezes, free from the noxious effluvia which load
even these breezes as we advance inland on the con-
tinent ; whilst its high land is above " the fatal fever
level." Or is it our object, as far as possible, to
reduce the sufferings, and spare the lives of the
negroes, whom we, with the most generous intentions,
rescue from the slave-trader? Under the present
system, we consign these negroes in vast numbers to
destruction, consequent on a five weeks' voyage to
Sierra Leone, Avhen they could be landed on the
* Laird, vol. ii. p. 391.
SETTLEMENTS IN THE INTERIOR. 353
island of Fernando Po, within a few hours, or, at
most, within a few days, after their capture ; while,
if located on that island, they would afford material
for the formation of what may be termed a normal
school, for the introduction of agriculture, civilization,
and Christianity into the interior of Africa.
To the reader who may be desirous of obtaining* fur-
ther information respecting this island, I strongly re-
commend the perusal of the abstract of a letter which
I insert in the Appendix.* It was written, as its date
(Sept. 1835) proves, without reference to the plans
which I now propose, and it did not come into my pos-
session, till after the above description of the island
had been prepared. It will be seen, however, how
remarkably it confirms the statements I have made
on other authorities.
Next in importance to Fernando Po, is a settlement
at the confluence of the Niger and the Tchadda. It
can hardly be doubted, I think, even by those who
are most sceptical with regard to predictions of future
commercial greatness, that this position will, here-
after, become the great internal citadel of Africa, and
the great emporium of her commerce. It commands
the Niger, with all its tributary streams and branches
in the interior, while Fernando Po exercises the same
control over its numerous mouths. With these two
positions, and with our steamers plying between them,
it is not too much to say, that this great river would
* Vide Appendix B.
354 THE REMEDY.
be safe from the ravages of the pirate and the man-
hunter, and would be open to the capital and enter-
prise of the legitimate merchant. I must here avail
myself of a passage from a work published nearly
twenty years ago: — *
"The extent of country and population whose
improvements, labours, and wants would be dependent
upon, and stimulated to exertions by a settlement on
the Niger, is prodigious, and altogether unequalled.
The extent comprehends a country of nearly 40° of
longitude from west to east, and through the greater
part of this extent of 20° of latitude from north to
south, a space almost equal to Europe. Where the
confluence of the Tschadda with the Niger takes
place, is the spot to erect the capital of our great
African establishments. A city built there, under
the protecting wings of Great Britain, would ere long
become the capital of Africa. Fifty millions of
people, yea, even a greater number, would be depend-
ant on it.
9fC W *|f Sj!
"The rivers are the roads in the torrid zone.
Nature seems to have intended these as the great
help in introducing agriculture and commerce.
* The " View of Northern Central Africa" was published before
it was known that the Niger emptied itself into the Bight of Be-
nin, and when the prevailing theories gave that river an opposite
direction. The author, Mr. M'Queen, is at least entitled to the
credit of having clearly pointed out its true course; all that he
then asserted has been verified by the expedition of Laird and
Oldfield.
RIVERS. 355
(i Wherever the continents are most extensive, there
we find the most magnificent rivers flowing through
them, opening up a communication from side to side.
What is still more remarkable, and becomes of great
utility, is, that these mighty currents flow against the
prevailing winds, thus rendering the navigation easy,
which would otherwise be extremely tedious and
difficult. The prevailing trade-winds blow right up
their streams. This is the case with the Niger, and
in a more particular manner during the time it
is in flood. For ten months in the year, but more
particularly from May till November, the prevailing
wind in the Bights of Benin and Biafra is from south-
west, thus blowing right up all the outlets of the
Niger. In the Congo, Tuckey found the breeze
generally blowing up the stream. It is needless to
point out, at length, the advantages which may be
derived from this wise regulation in the natural
world."
I have dwelt thus much on the Niger and the
settlements connected with it, because it clearly holds
the foremost place among the great inlets to Africa ;
but the number and situation of many other navig-
able rivers on the western coast of Africa have been
much remarked by those who have visited them, as
affording the noblest means for extending the com-
merce of this country to the millions who dwell on
their banks, or occupy the cities and towns in the
interior. Along the coast, commencing at the southern
356 THE REMEDY.
point of the Bight of Biafra, and embracing the coast
of Calabar, the Slave Coast, the Gold Coast, the
Ivory Coast, the Grain Coast, the Pepper Coast, the
coast of Sierra Leone, and thence northwards to the
Senegal, there cannot be less than ninety or one
hundred rivers, many of them navigable, and two of
them rivalling in their volume of water and extent
the splendid rivers of North America. It is reported
that a French steam-vessel plies more than 700 miles
up the Senegal, and that the Faleme, which flows
into it eight leagues below Galam, is navigable in
the rainy season for vessels of sixty tons burden.
The Faleme runs through the golden land of Bam-
bouk, whence the French traders obtain considerable
quantities of that precious metal. The Gambia is a
noble river. It is about eleven miles wide at its
mouth, and about four opposite Bathurst. How far
it extends into the interior is unknown ; it is said,
however, that it has been ascended for some hundred
miles.* It is also asserted that from the upper part
of this river the Senegal can be reached in three, and
the Niger in four days.
In addition to the mighty rivers above referred to,
* In 1834, Captain Quin carried Governor Rendall up to
Macarthy's Island, in the Britomart sloop of war. Craft of 50
or 60 tons can get up to Fattatenda, the resort of caravans for
trade with British merchants. Commodore Owen terms the
Gambia " a magnificent river." It was surveyed in 182G l>y
Lieutenant Owen, R.N., on which occasion he was accompanied
by the Acting Governor Macaulay, as far as Macarthy's Island,
180 miles up the river. — Owen, ii.
GEOGRAPHICAL POSITION. 357
it has been ascertained that, from Rio Lagos to the
river Elrei, no fewer than twenty streams enter the
ocean, several of surprising magnitude, and navig-
able for ships (M'Queen) ; and that all the
streams which fall into the sea from Rio Formosa
to Old Calabar inclusive, are connected together
by intermediate streams, at no great distance from
the sea.
The geographical position of Africa, and its conti-
guity to Europe claim for it especial attention. The
voyage from the port of London to the Senegal is gene-
rally accomplished in twenty-five days; to the Gambia
in twenty- eight or thirty days ; to Sierra Leone, in
thirty to thirty-five days ; to Cape Coast Castle, in
forty-two to forty-eight days ; to Fernando Po, forty-
eight to fifty-three days ; to the ports in the Bight of
Biafra,in fifty to fifty-five days ; to the Zaire or Congo,
in fifty-five to sixty days, respectively. Vessels leav-
ing Bristol or Liverpool for the same ports possess
an advantage, in point of time, of from five to eight
days. The voyage is attended with little danger,
provided common care be used. The homeward voy-
age is of course considerably longer than the outward,
in consequence of the vessels being obliged to take
what is commonly called, the western passage, hav-
ing generally to go as far as 40° west longitude.
The difference in the length of the voyages, outward
and homeward, may be stated at from three to four
weeks.
The use of steam would, of course, greatly diminish
358 THE REMEDY.
the length of the voyage, and facilitate the operations
of the trader, until establishments could be formed
to which the produce required might be conveyed by
the natives.
The best season for visiting the African coast is
the dry season, that is, from December to May. But
it may be remarked that the line of coast from Cape
Palm as to Cape St. Paul's is less subject to rains
than the Windward Coast or the Bights, and may be
visited at any season. The worst period of the year is
from the middle of July to the middle of December.*
With regard to commerce, then, this portion of
Africa would have fair play : her resources may prove
greater, or less than we suppose ; but, whatever they
be, the traffic arising from them will possess that first
and indispensable requisite — security.
I do not, however, anticipate that this commerce
will in the first instance be large. Africa is only
capable of producing : as yet, she does not produce.
When it is found that there is security for person and
* The chief causes of the sickness and mortality on hoard trad-
ing vessels may be ascribed, first, to climate ; second, to overwork,
and especially exposure to the action of the sun while working ;
and, third, to drunkenness. This last is the chief cause of morta-
lity. One great means of preventing sickness would be, to make
it imperative for all trading-vessels to employ a certain number of
natives, as is done on board men-of-war.
Mr. Becroft (a merchant who resided for a number of years at
Fernando Po) went up the Niger in the Quorra steam-boat, on a
trading voyage, in 1836 ; his expedition lasted three months. He
had with him a crew of forty persons, including five white men.
Only one individual died, a white man, who was previously far
gone in consumption.
EFFECTS TO BE HOPED FOR. 359
property, and that products of industry find a ready
market, and command a supply of European articles
which the natives covet, an impulse will, no doubt,
be given to internal cultivation. But it is greatly to
be desired, that this impulse should be as strong, and
operate as speedily, as possible. What we want is, to
supplant the Slave Trade by another trade, which
shall be more lucrative. We cannot expect that
savage nations will be greatly influenced by the
promise of prospective advantage. The rise of the
legitimate trade ought, if we are to carry the good-
will of the natives along with us, to follow as close
as possible upon the downfall of the trade in man :
there ought to be an immediate substitute for the
gains which are to cease. In short, the natives must
be assisted, and by every method in our power put in
the way of producing those things which will bear a
value in the market of the world. It is impossible
that we can be in error in assuming that Africa,
under cultivation, will make more from her exports
than she now receives from the sale of her popu-
lation.
There is no danger that the experiment will fail, if
time enough is allowed for the full development of
its results : but there is very considerable risk that
the experiment while advancing to maturity will fail,
from the impatience of a barbarous people, who are
not in the habit of contemplating distant results, and
who, finding themselves stripped of one species of
customary trade, have not as yet been remunerated
360 THE REMEDY.
by the acquisition of a better source of revenue. For
this reason, I have already suggested that we should,
for a time, subsidize the chiefs of Africa, whose assist-
ance we require ; and, for the same reason, I now
propose that we should give all natural, and even
some artificial stimulants to agricultural industry.
If at the moment when the African population
find themselves in unaccustomed security, and feel,
for the first time, a certainty of reaping what they
sow ; when they see their river, which has hitherto
been worse than useless to the bulk of the people —
(for it has brought on its waves only an armed ban-
ditti, and carried away from their smouldering villages
only that banditti exulting in their captured prey) —
transformed into the cheapest, the safest, and the
most convenient highway between themselves, and the
civilized world, and discover it to be the choicest
blessing which nature has bestowed upon them ;
if at the moment when a market is brought to their
doors, and foreign merchants are at hand, ready to
exchange for their productions the alluring articles of
European manufacture, of which, sparingly as they
have hitherto tasted, they know the rare beauty, and
surpassing usefulness, — if at this moment, when so
many specific and powerful motives invite them to
the diligent cultivation of their soil, they are visited
by a band of agricultural instructors, who offer at
once to put them in possession of that skill in hus-
bandry which the rest of the world has acquired, and
they are enabled to till their ground in security, and
EFFECTS TO BE HOPED FOR. 361
find opened to them a conveyance for its pro-
ductions, and a market for their sale ; and if simul-
taneously with these advantages we furnish that
practical knowledge, and those mechanical contri-
vances which the experience of ages, and the inge-
nuity of successive generations, have by slow degrees
disclosed to ourselves — I cannot doubt that those
combined benefits and discoveries will furnish an
immediate, as well as an ample compensation for
the loss of that wicked traffic, which, if it has afforded
profit to the few, has exposed the great mass of the
inhabitants to unutterable wretchedness.
362
CHAPTER IV.
RESULTS OF EXPERIENCE.
Africa, it is true, is in great measure untried
ground, yet there is some information to be derived
from the history of those colonies, few and imperfect
though they be, which have been attempted along her
coasts. There are also important hints to be found
in the recorded opinions (many of them drawn from
actual experiment) of those who are best acquainted
with the subject, whether government officers, tra-
vellers, or others. It may now be convenient to turn
our attention to the colonies which already belong
to us in Africa : in the history of them there is much
to confirm my views. I extract the following passage
from a paper written by Mr. Bandinel, dated Foreign
Office, March 30, 1839 :—
" So long ago as in 1792, the colony of Sierra
Leone was founded by benevolent individuals, for the
express purpose of inducing the natives to abandon
the traffic. The course taken was two-fold : — the
one, to educate the natives, with the view of teaching
them to give up the Slave Trade, on a religious prin-
ciple ; the other, to substitute for that trade a more
legitimate commerce.
" The accounts, soon after the settlement was
formed, stated, that the natives crowded round the
colony both for education and for trade ; and that the
SIERRA LEONE. 363
beneficial effect on them, in inducing them to quit
Slave-trading, was instantaneous. That effect has
been continued, and has extended, in the neighbour-
hood of Sierra Leone, to a very considerable distance
round the colony. Traders bring down the ivory, the
gold-dust, and palm-oil, as usual. Of late years, a
very important branch has been added to the legal
trade, by the cutting of timber for the British navy ;
and the minds of the natives are thus effectually di-
verted from the baneful occupation of the Slave
Trade, to the pursuits of legitimate commerce."
I admit, that Sierra Leone has failed to realize all
the expectations which were at one time indulged.
It must, I fear, be confessed, that the situation was
ill-chosen, — the north-west wind blows on it from
the JBulloom shore, covered with mangrove- swamps,
which generate the most destructive malaria. The
district is small, by no means affording space for a
fair experiment of our system. Nor is the land of
the peninsula well suited for the growth of tropical
productions ; and there is wanting that, without which
we can hardly expect to see commerce spring up and
thrive in a barbarous country, — a river navigable far
into the interior. Besides these natural difficulties,
there have been some, arising from the system which
we have adopted, or " rather," in the words of one of
the strongest advocates in favour of Sierra Leone, " in
the want of anything like system or preconcerted plan
in the administration of its government . . . the whole
of its administration, with the exception of its judicial
2 B
364 THE REMEDY.
system, was left to the chapter of accidents. No
instructions were sent from home ; every governor
was left to follow the suggestions of his OAvn mind,
both as regarded the disposal and treatment of the
liberated Africans, and the general interests of the
colony Every governor has been left
to follow his own plans, however crude and undi-
gested ; and no two succeeding governors have ever
pursued the same course. This remark applies more
particularly to the management of the liberated
Africans."
I find this view confirmed in the third Resolution
of the Report of the Select Committee on the State
of Sierra Leone, 1830, which runs thus : — " It is the
opinion of this Committee, that the progress of the
liberated Africans in moral and industrious habits
has been greatly retarded by the frequent change of
system in their location and maintenance, and by the
yearly influx of thousands of their rude and unci-
vilized countrymen."
This resolution notices another peculiarity in the
case of Sierra Leone, which ought always to be borne
in mind when it is brought forward as an instance
of what may be done in African colonies. This pecu-
liarity consists in the nature of its population, " a
heterogeneous mass," but mainly composed of the sur-
viving cargoes of captured slave-ships, — men who
have undergone a great shock, — uprooted beings, —
compelled colonists of a strange land. In addition to
this original disadvantage, there have undoubtedly
SIERRA LEONE. 365
been great errors and omissions in the management of
them. According to Colonel Denham, superintend-
ant of that department, there has been " the want of
instruction, capital, and example ;" yet he adds, "with
the very little they have had of either, conveyed in a
manner likely to benefit them generally, it is to me
daily an increasing subject of astonishment, that the
liberated Africans settled here have done so much for
themselves as they have."
Sierra Leone has unquestionably laboured under
very great disadvantages.* But, with all its defects,
if anything has anywhere been done for the benefit
of Western Africa, it has been there. The only
glimmer of civilization ; the only attempt at legiti-
mate commerce ; the only prosecution, however faint,
of agriculture, are to be found at Sierra Leone, and
at some of those settlements which I have just named.
And there alone the Slave Trade has been in any de-
gree arrested. We may regret, therefore, that the
experiment was not tried under more favourable
circumstances, on a more healthy spot, on a more
* I have compared various and conflicting accounts of Sierra
Leone ; the Reports of the Company, and of the African Institu-
tion ; the able Reports of Colonel Denham on the Liberated Afri-
cans, and other Government Despatches ; the Statements of Mr.
M 'Queen, and the Reply of Mr. Kenneth Macaulay; and the Evi-
dence before both the Aborigines Committees, and that on the state
of Sierra Leone, together with several private letters of authority;
and I believe my statements will all be found accurate, though my
authorities are too voluminous, and too varied, to quote or extract at
length,
2b2
366 THE REMEDY
fertile and suitable soil, on a larger scale, less exposed
to the inroads of the slave-trader, and in the vici-
nity of one of the great arteries of Africa. Still, ex-
perience speaks strongly in its favour, because many
thousands of human beings, taken from the holds of
slave-ships, and placed there in the rudest state of
barbarism, have made considerable advances in civiliz-
ation,* because thousands of Negro children have re-
* Captain Ramsay told me that he had been particularly struck
with the intelligent conversation and refined manners of a person
in whose company he dined at Fernando Po, and whom he thought
capable of filling almost any situation. Had it hot been for his
complexion, he would have supposed that he had been educated in
England. This man was brought thither, not many years before,
in the hold of a slave-ship. Mr. H. W. Macaulay, Commis-
sary Judge at Sierra Leone, stated before a Parliamentary Com-
mittee, in 1837, that a large portion of these people, brought, as
they have been, to the " colony in a savage state," landed, as he
has seen many thousands of them, in a diseased and wretched con-
dition, yet become civilized and useful members of society. He
states, that these men form the militia : they serve not only as con-
stables and attendants on the Courts of Justice, but also as jury-
men ; and they discharge this duty so satisfactorily, that Mr. Mac-
aulay further states, that, having himself had questions of large
amount before them, he should at all times be willing to abide by
their verdict. In speaking of the advancement to which these
people have attained, he says : " There are many such instances
of liberated Africans : one in particular, which I recollect, where
a man, who not very long since was in the hold of a slave-ship,
is acquiring at present an income of, I suppose, from 1,200/. to
1,500/. a-year. He has the government contracts for the supply
of beef to the army and navy, and has had them for many years
past, and he has always fulfilled his contracts to the satisfaction of
SIERRA LEONE. 367
ceived and are receiving the rudiments of Christian
education, and because a trade has there taken root, in
itself inconsiderable enough, it is true, but yet, one-
third of the whole legitimate trade of Central Africa.
The very fact, that so large a proportion of African
commerce has taken refuge, as it were, in a spot so
inconvenient, while none is found on that mighty
river which flows from the centre of Africa into the
Atlantic, is in itself, to my apprehension, an unanswer-
able and authoritative proof, that, could the system of
protection and instruction be tried on right principles,
and upon a large scale, we need not despair of wit-
nessing a great and glorious change in the condition
of that continent.
Since the above remarks were written, I have re-
ceived a letter from Mr. Ferguson, a gentleman of great
intelligence and experience, who was originally sent
out to Sierra Leone under the auspices of the African
Institution, and is now, and has been for the last
eight years, at the head of the medical department
there. The document is so interesting, and so highly
important, that I have ventured to quote it at con-
siderable length; not, however, without having, in
parts, curtailed the original paper, as it respects a few
facts and statements of minor importance: —
" Having resided at Sierra Leone during a period
of seventeen years, and had many opportunities of
the Government. He is living in a very excellent house ; has every
comfort about him ; and has educated two of his children in
England."
368 THE REMEDY.
intercourse with the nations in the neighbourhood of
that colony, my views of the practicability of the
measures you contemplate have reference chiefly to
the Windward Coast, and in a more especial manner
to the colony of Sierra Leone, and to the nations
immediately adjacent.
" Though the friends of Sierra Leone have long-
ceased to look for, or to expect any great advantage
to the cause of African civilization from that quarter,
I entertain a rather confident hope of being able to
show that the cause is by no means so hopeless as it
is generally supposed to be ; but on the contrary, that
it is precisely in that quarter, and in its neighbour-
hood, and at the present time, that the objects you
contemplate are likely to be most speedily, and for
some years at least, most extensively accomplished.
" Much money as well as much parental care and
encouragement were lavished on the infant colony of
Sierra Leone ; but matters were so mismanaged in
the outset of the undertaking, especially in the breach
of faith with the Nova Scotian settlers, refusing to
allot to them the quantities of land for which thev
had previously stipulated, that distrust and dis-
content, neglect of agriculture, and inveterate habits
of idleness, became general.
" After a lapse of some years, an accession was
made to the colony of numbers, but by no means of
moral strength, in a body of Maroons, who were
sent from Jamaica alter the Maroon war. They had
been for many years the only body of free blacks in
SIERRA LEONE. 369
the island of Jamaica. Indolent, and averse to
agriculture in their native land, their habits were by
no means changed by the transatlantic voyage, nor
have they, in fact, studied to acquire habits of industry
until this day. Thus agriculture and the useful arts
received no aid whatever from such elements as the
Sierra Leone Company had as yet employed in
furtherance of their benevolent designs.
" The abolition of the Slave Trade by Great
Britain, and its subsequently declared illegality,
under certain circumstances, by the governments of
Spain and Portugal, and the consequent capture of
vessels taken in the prosecution of the illicit trade,
introduced, in the body of liberated Africans, a third
element in the population of the colony, and it is to
the working of that third element — what it has
already done, is doing, and what may be prospectively
and reasonably expected from it, that I desire espe-
cially to direct your attention.
" The condition of a body of captured slaves on
their arrival at Sierra Leone for liberation, is the
most miserable and wretched that can be conceived —
emaciated, squalid, sickly-looking, ill-fed, barbarous,
confined in inadequate space, compelled to breathe an
atmosphere hardly fit for the sustenance of animal
life — is it to be wondered, that, in such circumstances,
the faculties of the soul should be cramped and
benumbed by the cruelties inflicted upon the body ?
It is nevertheless from among such people and their
descendants at Sierra Leone, their minds at length
370 THE REMEDY.
elevated by a sense of personal freedom, and by the
temperate administration of just and equitable laws,
that you are to look for the first practical results of
your operations, It is not my intention to trace the
progress of the liberated Africans from the depths of
misery alluded to, until we find them, after the lapse
of fifteen or twenty years, independent and respect-
able members of society, but to give you some notion
of them as a class, and of the position in society
which they occupy at the present day.
" Those most recently arrived are to be found
occupying mud houses and small patches of ground
in the neighbourhood of one or other of the villages,
which are about twenty in number. The majority of
these remain in their location as agriculturists ; but
several go to reside in the neighbourhood of Free-
town as labourers, farm servants, servants to carry
wood and water, grooms, house servants, &c. Others
cultivate vegetables, rear poultry and pigs, or offer
for sale a variety of edible substances. They are a
harmless and well disposed people ; there is no
poverty nor begging amongst them ; their habits are
frugal and industrious, and their anxiety to possess
money remarkable.
'' Persons of a grade higher than those just de-
scribed are to be found occupying frame houses, and
are mostly employed either in carrying on small
trades in the market, in buying and retailing the
• iiigoes of native canoes, in curing and drying fish,
or in working at various mechanical trades. Re-
SIERRA LEONE. 371
spectable men of this grade meet with ready mercan-
tile credits, amounting from £20 to £60 ; and the
class is very numerous.
" Those who have advanced another step are found
in frame houses, reared on a stone foundation, of from
six to ten feet in height. These houses are very com-
fortable ; a considerable quantity of furniture of
European workmanship, and of books, chiefly of a
religious character, is to be found in them, and an
air of domestic comfort pervading the whole. Per-
sons of this class are nearly altogether occupied in
shopkeeping, and may be seen clubbing together in
numbers from three to six, seven, or more, to purchase
large lots or unbroken bales ; and the scrupulous
honesty with which the subdivision of the goods is
afterwards made, cannot be evidenced more thoroughly
than in this, that, common as such transactions are,
they have never yet been known to become the sub-
ject of controversy or litigation. The principal
streets of Freetown, as well as the approaches to the
town, are lined on each side by an almost continuous
range of booths and stalls, among which almost every
article of merchandise is offered for sale. They are
all in easy circumstances, and are invariably anxious
to possess houses and lands of their own, especially
in Old Freetown. Property of this description has
of late years become much enhanced, and is still
increasing in value, solely from their annually
increasing numbers and prosperity.
" Persons of the highest grade of liberated Africans
372 THE REMEDY.
occupy comfortable two-story stone houses, inclosed
all round with spacious piazzas. These houses are
their own property, and are built from the proceeds
of their own industry. In several of them are to be
seen mahogany chairs, tables, sofas, and four-post
bedsteads, pier glasses, floor cloths, and other articles
indicative of domestic comfort and accumulating
wealth. They are almost wholly engaged in mer-
cantile pursuits, and are to be found in neatly fitted-
up shops on the ground-floor of their respective
dwelling-houses. Many of them have realized con-
siderable sums of money. Peter Newland, a libe-
rated African, died a short time before I left the colony,
and his estate realized, in houses, merchandise, and
cash, upwards of £ 1,500. I am well acquainted with
one of these individuals, whose name, shortly before
my departure from the colony, stood on the debtor
side of the books of one of the principal merchants
for £'1,900, to which sum it had been reduced from
£3,000 during the preceding two months. Many of
them at the present moment have their children being
educated in England at their own expense.
" There is at Sierra Leone a very fine regiment of
colonial militia, more than eight-tenths of which are
liberated Africans. The amount of property which
they have acquired is ample guarantee for their loyalty,
should that ever be called in question. They turn
out with great alacrity and cheerfulness on all occa-
sions for periodical drill. They also serve on juries ;
and I have repeatedly heard the highest legal autho-
SIERRA LEONE. 373
rity in the colony express his satisfaction with theL
decisions.
" From the preceding details it may be inferred,
that a leading feature in the character of the liberated
Africans is their great love of money. But this,
though remarkable, is by no means of that sordid
nature which induces the miser to hoard up his wealth
for its own sake. On the contrary, their whole
surplus means are devoted to the increase of their
domestic comforts and the improvement of their out-
ward appearance of respectability A comfortable
house is the first great object of their desire. For
this they are content to labour at any sort of work,
and turn themselves diligently and cheerfully to any
honest means of earning money. The working hours
are from six in the morning till four in the afternoon,
with one hour of interval for breakfast. Labour is
to be had in abundance at 4d. per diem. Very needy
persons may sometimes be found who will work for
S\d. A good overseer or headsman may be had at
5d. per diem, or 13s. per month.
" Of the liberated Africans as a body, it may with
great truth be said that there is not a more quiet,
inoffensive, and good humoured population on the
face of the earth. Of their religious spirit it is not
easy, from the very nature of the subject, to form a
decided opinion, but I know that their outward obser-
vance of the Sabbath-day is most exemplary. On
that day the passion for amusements is altogether laid
aside, and the whole body of the people are to be
374 THE REMEDY.
found at one or other of the churches or chapels,
which abound in the colony.
" It may he presumed, from what has been said of
their love of gain, that in their habits and desires
they are decidedly industrious. But, however suc-
cessful, from the abundance of European example,
they may have been in the application of their ener-
gies and industry to pursuits of a mercantile nature,
it is to be regretted that no similar example in the
department of agriculture has as yet been placed be-
fore them. Were such example afforded in the cul-
ture of such articles as would at all times meet with
a ready purchaser, I am warranted in averring, with
much confidence, that energies similar to those which
(as we have already seen) have been so zealously and
successfully directed to trade, would promptly, and
with equal zeal, be found engaged in agriculture.
In 1826 Mr. Clouston, a respectable merchant of
Freetown, planted a small quantity of ginger by way
of experiment, and having reported favourably of it,
its culture was immediately taken up by a vast body
of liberated Africans. Ignorance was, however, dis-
played at every step of their progress. They planted
indiscriminately in sterile and in rich soils, so that
the sample produced was a mixture of plump and
meagre roots. By some the sample was dried pre-
viously to being offered for sale, by others not ; by
some it was carefully cleaned, which others neglected;
so that the merchants became averse to purchase it,
and the growers saw their hopes blighted. In 1829
SIERRA LEONE. 375
their attention was turned to the culture of capsicum,
by the sale of a lot at Freetown, which fetched 2s. 6d.
per pound. It would have been difficult at that time
to have collected two tons of pepper in the colony,
but in the course of a very few years individual mer-
chants were found exporting 100 and 150 tons per
annum. The price however, fell to 4d. per pound ;
sales could not even then be effected; and the hopes
of the cultivators were again disappointed. In 1833
their expectations were similarly raised and blighted
by the encouragement held out for the manufacture
of cassada starch. Instances might be multiplied,
but I think those just noted are sufficient to show
that the liberated Africans are not only willing but
desirous that their attention should be directed to the
culture of such articles as will afford them a certain
return for their labour and industry ; and that the
position at which they have arrived in the social state
is precisely that to which the labours of philanthro-
pists may be applied satisfactorily to themselves, and
with a certain prospect of advantage to that interesting-
people.
" Among other circumstances indicative of the
improvement of their worldly means, and of their
desire still further to avail themselves of European
example, none stands more prominently forward than
the system which they have lately commenced of
sending their children to England for education.
Thirty years ago a few liberated African boys were
sent to England and educated at the expense of the
376 THE REMEDY.
African Institution, with a view to their aid in work-
ing out the general objects of the Institution at Sierra
Leone. These boys, on their return to. the colony,
with one exception, speedily fell back on the barba-
rous habits of their youth, and their public utility fell
far short of the expectations of their patrons. We
now, however, behold under different auspices the
same class of persons considerably advanced in wealth
and civilization, desiring European education for
their children of their own accord, without advice or
pecuniary aid from others, and moved thereto solely
by a conviction of its intrinsic excellence. There are
now, however, but few outlets for the employment of
educated young men in the colony ; and it appears
clear that the quantity of talent of this description
which will become available will in a short time far
exceed the means of employment. The present is
therefore precisely the time for the friends of African
civilization to adopt such measures as may appear
best calculated to secure the effectual co-operation of
the new element which is about to be placed before
them.
" Several articles of tropical agriculture have been
from time to time tried at Sierra Leone on a small
scale, and the experiments have been generally suc-
cessful. The most decided, as well as the most care-
fully performed and most successful of these, was the
introduction, a few years ago, by some of the gentle-
men of the Church Missionary Society, of some of the
seeds of the Sea-island cotton. I have stated above.
SIERRA LEONE. 377
that were examples in agriculture offered as liberally
as they have been in trade, the former would be fol-
lowed up by the liberated Africans with as much
diligence and zeal as they have been found to have
devoted to the latter. It would, however, be im-
portant, in conducting such an experiment, that their
attention should, in the first instance, be directed to
such articles as in their culture require the smallest
outlay of money, the shortest time to bring them to
maturity, and a sure sale whenever and in whatever
quantity they may be brought to market.
" No article seems to afford these requisites with
such a prospect of certainty as cotton ; and a normal
farm of 100 acres, for the culture of that article, in
the south-eastern part of the colony, would, I am
well assured, be followed within two years by a ge-
neral rush of the whole agricultural population
towards its production. The actual sight of a con-
siderable quantity grown in the colony, offered for
sale, and immediately purchased, would render
any further experimental effort in regard to that
article useless ; except, indeed, in respect of the
best kind of seed to be used, and the most approved
mode of culture.
" But this is, perhaps, the smallest amount of bene-
fit that would ensue. The natives of the countries in
the immediate vicinity of Sierra Leone take a large
quantity of British manufactures in return for Afri-
can teak, the cutting and squaring of which is
nearly altogether performed by slave labour. The
378 THE REMEDY.
sort of traffic to which it has given rise, has, never-
theless, so clearly demonstrated to the native chiefs
how much more advantageous it is to work their
slaves than to sell them, that Slave Trading (I mean
the selling of slaves) in the countries adjacent to
Sierra Leone has nearly altogether ceased. In
some of these countries the timber is now obtained
with much more difficulty than formerly, owing to
the greater distance from the water-side at which
it has to be procured. Should this difficulty in-
crease to such a length as to render the cutting of
timber no longer profitable, the hands left unem-
ployed in such a case would, in the culture of cot-
ton, find ample means of profitable employment ; and
by this means the continuance and permanence of
the first great step in African civilization would, to
the inhabitants of those countries, be secured. I fear
that these people are not yet so far removed from
the recollections of a flourishing Slave Trade as to
render its abandonment by them the result of sound
principle, or of a conviction of its cruelty. The con-
tinuance of the legitimate trade on which they have
already so successfully entered, may, however, in the
hands of another generation, establish its final aban-
donment on more reputable motives. Meantime, in
the cutting of timber, and in the growth of rice, we
have undoubted proofs of their industry, and of their
willingness, by bodily labour, to obtain what they may
require of European manufactures.
" I trust that in this sketch of the liberated
SIERRA LEONE. 379
Africans, of the progress which they have already
made, and of the efforts which they are still making,
towards civilization, you will find not only sufficient
encouragement to induce you to devote towards the
colony of Sierra Leone a portion of your fostering
care ; but also that you will perceive that the pre-
sent is the time when instruction and encourage-
ment, especially in the practice of agriculture, afford
a fairer prospect of being crowned with success, than
at any other period in the previous history or condi-
tion of the colony.
" I have a moral certainty that the advances which
they have already made in knowledge and in wealth
cannot possibly be arrested at the present stage, and
that an impulse has been given to the onward course
of improvement, the limit of which, in respect to
them_, is not yet in sight. But however certain their
future progress may be in the course on which they
have so auspiciously entered, it is clear that that pro-
gress might be accelerated tenfold, were there, in well
conducted examples, and in competent instruction,
as it were a beacon held out to them, teaching them
alike what to avoid and what to cling to, as well in
the mode of culture, as in the article to be culti-
vated.
" There are places on the Windward Coast of
Western Africa, other than Sierra Leone, which I
think would repay any care that might be bestowed
on them, in the way of agricultural instruction and
example ; and, perhaps, none will be found better
2c
380 THE REMEDY.
calculated for its application than the settlements on
the river Gambia. The soil is rich, and more easily
brought under culture than even that of Sierra
Leone ; ground nuts and corn are grown there ; and
cotton, also, in a considerable quantity, and of a tex-
ture which, as I have been informed by respectable
merchants, equals much that is brought from the
West Indies and South America, although their
mode of preparing it is inferior. At the extensive
Government farm near Bathurst, which is worked by
liberated Africans, such quantities of ground nuts
and corn are raised, as far more than pay all the ex-
penses of management ; and were example and the
necessary instruction afforded, the culture of cotton
might there be substituted with great advantage, and
at no additional expense.
" Keeping steadily in sight your principle of sub-
stituting a harmless and profitable trade for one that
is illegal and worse than profitless, I am also desirous
of directing your attention to what has been going on
during the last year or two in the Rio Nunez. This
river, though now little spoken of, was in former
years notorious for Slave Trading.
" At Kaikandy, the chief trading place, situated
about 100 miles from the sea, and in the country of
the Landemas, numerous factories, occupied by
French and English traders, are established ; to
which Foulahs, Seracoolies, Bambarras, and people
<>1* other nations, resort in great numbers. I spent
sonic time there in February last, and was assured
POULAHS. 381
by the merchants that the Foulahs were gradually
weaning themselves from the Slave Trade, and that
they had of late years brought down a much larger
quantity of native produce than formerly ; an assu-
rance which was confirmed as well by the number of
English and French merchants established there in
the prosecution of legitimate commerce, as by the
single slave-trader, Sefior Caravalho, a Portu-
guese.
" About three years ago, some of the Foulah
traders who resort to Kaikandy, brought down small
parcels of coffee, and offered them for sale. The
coffee was so eagerly purchased by the European
merchants, that the Foulahs immediately turned their
attention to the further supply of it. It appears that
there are vast forests of indigenous coffee in the Foulah
country, and of much finer quality than that of the
West Indies or South America. The Foulahs evince
great satisfaction in the possession of such an unex-
pected source of wealth, and the quantity supplied
has of course greatly increased; but, unfortunately,
this infant trade, at the very dawning of its existence,
is threatened with destruction; it being found that
the protective duty for British plantation was so high
as to prove tantamount to a total exclusion of the
Foulah coffee, the duty on the former being Qd., and
on the latter l.s-. 3d., per pound. The merchants at
Kaikandy have, nevertheless, continued to purchase
the coffee, in whatever quantities it has been offered,
2 c 2
382 THE REMEDY.
in the hope that the British Government may yet be
disposed to relieve them of their difficulties.
" But the most grievous part of the disappointment
is, that it would be difficult to devise any mode cal-
culated more powerfully and effectually to disenthral
the people from the desire of kidnapping and selling
each other, than the admission of the Foulah coffee
into the ports of Great Britain on terms similar to
those of British plantation.
" You will perceive from this detail, that the Fou-
lahs, without any extrinsic aid, have already done
much in furthering the object you have at heart ;
that they want assistance ; that the present is the
time at which that assistance may most effectually
be applied ; and also the nature of the assistance
required.
" The Foulahs are an intelligent people, and are
very anxious to extend their commercial dealings with
the British. They seem to have already perceived
that it is more profitable for them to preserve the ele-
ment of labour in their own country, than to deprive
themselves of its assistance by selling each other to
strangers ; so that it may be said, without a metaphor,
that in every hundred-weight of coffee which they
collect and take to Kaikandy, at least one human
being is preserved from slavery.
'* An instance illustrative of their desire to pre-
serve and extend their commercial relations with the
British occurred a few months ago. A temporary
FOULAHS. 383
interruption was thrown in the way of both the export
and import trade of the river (Nunez), by certain
dissensions among the tributary chiefs, the continu-
ance of which was likely to prove highly detrimental
to the interests of the British and other merchants
established at Kaikandy. Lieutenant Hill, of her
Majesty's brig Saracen, on being made acquainted
with the danger to which British property was ex-
posed, very promptly set sail for the Rio Nunez for
its protection. On his arrival there, a grand palaver
was called, for the purposes of investigating the
causes of this disturbance, and of restoring tranquil-
lity. The conference which ensued was presided over
by a Foulali chief, who appeared to be established at
Kaikandy in an official character, and to be clothed
with functions (as the event showed) of a nature more
full and extensive than those of a mere consul or
charge d'affaires.
" It appeared by the majority of voices, and by an
almost unanimous concurrence of opinion, that the
cause and continuance of the disturbances were attri-
butable to the intrigues of a Mandingo named Boi
Modao.
" The Foulali chief addressed himself to Lieut.
Hill, in a speech explanatory of the great anxiety of
the Foulali king to maintain and to extend commer-
cial intercourse with the British, and his determina-
tion to put down and remove any obstacle to its con-
tinuance that should arise ; and to satisfy Lieut. Hill
384 THE REMEDY.
of the sincerity of his professions, he offered then and
there to decapitate Boi Modao, and thus at once re-
store trade to its usual channels. Lieut. Hill, of
course, declined a proof of sincerity so unequivocal
and convincing.
" The conference was no sooner at an end than
Boi Modao, with marks of great haste and much
alarm, fled from that part of the country, and trade
was carried on as usual."
We now proceed to the further consideration of
the Gambia. "In the year 1S14," says Mr. Ban-
dinel, " a colony was formed at St. Mary's, on the
river Gambia, by British settlers, who removed from
the coasts of Senegal, when it was restored to the
French. This colony has increased and flourished
beyond all reasonable calculation, and is already
more powerful and wealthy than any of those elder
settlements of the British in Africa, which were
formed for the purpose of promoting the Slave Trade.
" The beneficial effects of the settlement of
St. Mary's, on all the tribes along the banks of the
Gambia, are perhaps still more prominent than those
which have taken place round Sierra Leone."
"The Gambia was formerly a great mart for slaves.
The population along its banks are now eager for
lawful commerce, in which alone they are now en-
gaged. The trade is extended above 400 miles up
the river; a new and lucrative branch has also been
lately opened there in gum ; and the only exception
THE GAMBIA. 385
to the cheering picture occurs in the French
establishment at Albreda, where still some slaves
are said to be harboured, obtained from natives
in the interior, and sent overland afterwards to
Goree."
The Slave Trade is, however, so small and so
declining at Albreda, that the exception may be
almost said to prove the rule ; because it shows, that
though an European establishment exists, ready to
trade in slaves, it does not flourish against the rivalry
of a legal commerce.
In the year 1833, a mission, in connexion with the
Wesleyan Society, was established at Macarthy's
Island on the Gambia, with the view of promoting
the civilization of the neighbouring tribes of Foulahs
through the medium of Christianity. To the mis-
sionaries connected with this establishment I am in-
debted for much valuable information respecting the
present state of Western Africa. The Rev. R. M.
Macbrair, in a M.S. statement with which he has
favoured me, ascribes the abolition of the Slave
Trade in the neighbourhood of the Gambia to two
causes ; first, to the vicinity of the British colony,
and its command over the river ; and, secondly, to
the existence of a good market for the produce of
the soil. The change effected by these circum-
stances Mr. Macbrair thus describes : — " Culture
is more practised in the neighbourhood of the Gam-
bia, where affairs are now comparatively peaceful.
Before the abolition of the Slave Trade, there were
386 THE REMEDY.
considerable factories here ; and one native merchant,
now at St. Mary's, was sold no less than three times
by another, who resides in the same place. One of
the kings also, is said to have " seized and disposed of
some of his subjects whenever he wanted a horse, a
wife, or other purchasable commodity." But now
that the slave-market is abolished, and the natives
can find a ready market for the produce of their
lands by means of the British merchants, the culti-
vation of the soil increases every year ; and the Abo-
rigines have been heard to say, that they now wish
they had their slaves back again, because they could
get more by their labours in husbandry, than they
did by selling them to Europeans."
Mr. Finden, who has been a resident merchant on
t he Gambia for the last 17 years, says, in a letter to
me, dated 4th May, 1838 — " Prior to the formation
of the settlement, the trade consisted almost wholly
in slaves ; and vessels, fitted out for the purpose, pro-
ceeded up the river about 300 miles. Since that
period, I can state from correct information, and my
own knowledge, that no slaves have been exported
in any vessel from the Gambia ; and in lieu of this
horrible traffic, a valuable and legitimate com-
merce has been established there, which by encou-
ragement might be considerably increased and
rendered most valuable to the mother country.'
" This," he thinks, "might be effected by extend-
ing protection, at least as high up the river as it is
navigable in the dry season. I should consider
THE GAMBIA. 387
Fattatenda* and Kantally Coonda the most desirable
spots. By 'this means, greater quantities of our
exports could be thrown into the country, and trade
drawn from a much greater distance, and we should
thus be enabled, in a great measure, to check the
slave -traders who pass these places on their way to
the different leeward slave-depots. An armed steam-
vessel would be of great service, and would afford
a protection to trading vessels and factories esta-
blished on the banks of the river, which are at pre-
sent rendered unsafe by the depredations committed
by marauding chiefs."
These views are fully concurred in by the Rev.
John Morgan, to whose zeal the Foulah mission
partly owes its origin. e He recommends the purchase
of tracts of land adjoining the principal rivers which
flow into the Atlantic, in which the natives might
find security from the predatory incursions of the
chiefs, and from the cupidity of the slave-trader ;
and he likewise suggests the employment of an armed
steam-vessel attached to each settlement. He says,
" I am convinced that thousands would flee to such
places of refuge, as soon as they could be assured of
protection, and thus a dense free population would
* A considerable trade is already carried on at the port of Fat-
tatenda, beyond which merchant-vessels do not proceed. The
Rev. W. Fox, who visited it in 1S37, describes it as " the resort
of caravans from the interior ;" and consequently a considerable
concourse of people is invariably attracted thither in the pursuit
commerce.
388 THE REMEDY.
soon spring up, and agriculture and commerce would
rapidly extend. These settlements might soon be
rendered capable of defending themselves, and a
great saving of European life would be immediately
effected, as the interior of the country is far more
salubrious than the coast."
Here I must again express my regret that the use-
fulness of our principal African settlements should
have been impaired by an injudicious selection of
localities, and by a too contracted scale of operations.
The disadvantages with which they have had to con-
tend are thus stated by Mr. Morgan : — " Being" situ-
ated on the coast, those who most needed refuge could
not reach them : secondly, they have ever been so
small, that it was impossible for more than a small
number to provide the means of subsistence on either
of them : thirdly, in several cases, protection has not
been offered to those who have fled to them." To
these causes, I think, it may be attributed that our
success has been so limited, and that so little has
been done towards the accomplishment of our main
object.
We find, however, in the immediate neighbourhood
of the Gambia, where the influence of the British
flag is felt, the Slave Trade has been suppressed, and
comparative tranquillity and security have been esta-
blished. But we do not proceed far into the interior,
before we meet with the same scenes of violence and
rapine as before. In many cases, the slaves avIio were
formerly brought to the mouth of the river, are now
THE GAMBIA. 389
transported over land to other parts of the coast ; the
depredations of the powerful chiefs still continue and
have hitherto rendered abortive the attempts which
have been made by the missionaries to establish na-
tive settlements on the main land, without the aid of
British protection. These circumstances confirm
me in the opinion which I have formed, in common
with those who are best acquainted with the subject,
that our settlements, in order to be effective, must be
fixed in the interior, where the Slave Trade originates,
and where our experiments can be tried at a less
costly sacrifice of human life.
I cannot conclude my notice of this colony, without
adverting to the success which has attended the la-
bours of the missionaries, from whom I have so
largely quoted. By the latest official returns of the
establishments at St. Mary's and Macarthy's Islands,
it appears, that there are " 559 members in church
fellowship, with congregations amounting to more
than double that number." The Mandingo language,
which is generally used in that part of Western
Africa, has been reduced to grammatical form, and
translations of the gospels have been made. In the
schools, which are partly conducted by native teachers,
220 are instructed in the elements of a plain edu-
cation ; and the missionaries state that they are
encouraged to persevere in their labours, by the
increasing desire manifested by the people to obtain
instruction. An interesting feature in this mission-
ary enterprise is the experiment which is about to be
390 THE REMEDY.
made of following up the preaching of the gospel by
instruction in the arts and pursuits of civilized life.
The site of a native village has been selected in
Macarthy's island, and 600 acres of land have been
allotted by the British government, on which some of
the Christian natives are already receiving elementary
instruction in agriculture.
The Gold Coast.
Our settlement on the Gold Coast is another
illustration of the advantage of stations in Africa.
In this case, there are two unquestionable facts,
— 1st, That the Slave Trade did prevail in the
district of the Gold Coast. 2ndly, That it has
been entirely suppressed, and that a considerable
and increasing trade has sprung up in its place.
To any one familiar with the earlier period of
the Slave Trade controversy, it will not be neces-
sary to say, that it was perpetually referred to, as
the district which furnished by far the greater part
of the slaves taken to the British colonies. We not
only established forts there for the express purpose of
encouraging that trade, but there seems to have been
no difficulty in obtaining from parliament munificent
grants for their maintenance — 30,000/. was the an-
nual sum thus applied.
" These establishments," says the governor of the
colony, " constituted the great emporium whence
ihe British West India colonies were supplied with
slaves. Such being the case, and considering also
THE GOLD COAST. 391
the vast number of slaves which were annually ex-
ported in order to meet the demands of so extensive a
market, we are fully warranted in affirming, that in
no part of Africa was the Slave Trade more firmly
rooted, or more systematically carried on, than in
these settlements."
What is now termed legitimate commerce was, pre-
viously to the passing of the Abolition Act, but little
thought of, and only attended to, so far as it was aux-
iliary to the grand object — the acquisition of slaves
" Daily accustomed to witness scenes of the most cold-
blooded cruelty, the inhabitants became utterly callous
to human suffering ; each petty chieftain oppressed
and plundered his weaker neighbours, to be in his turn
plundered and oppressed by one stronger and more
powerful than himself. In no portion of Africa, in
short, was the demoralising, the brutalising influence
of the Slave Trade more fearfully displayed, than in
those extensive tracts of country which now form, or
are adjoining to, our settlements on the Gold Coast."
But, happily, this state of things no longer
exists. Within a few short years so complete a re-
volution has been effected, that, in the expressive
words of Governor M'Lean, "from Apollonia to
Accra, not a single slave has been exported since
the year 1830."
It becomes, then, highly interesting to ascertain
how, and by what means, the Slave Trade has been
eradicated from a portion of Africa, comprehending a
space which Governor M'Lean rates at 4000 square
392 THE REMEDY.
miles inland, and a line of coast 180 miles in extent,
— where it had been planted, protected, fostered, and
munificently encouraged for centuries.
This great object has not been accomplished by our
naval squadrons. Her Majesty's cruisers have cer-
tainly been in the habit of visiting the settlement,
but only for the purpose of procuring supplies, and of
affording, if called upon, aid to the local authorities.
No cruiser (says the Governor) has ever, at least for
many years, been stationed off the Gold Coast for
the purpose of intercepting slaves.
This revolution has been effected by the very
agency which I desire to see tried on other parts of
the coast, and on a greater scale, — by the establishment
of a station, which, while it multiplies the difficul-
ties and dangers of the slave-trader, will afford pro-
tection to the native in the cultivation of the soil, by
giving security to the trader, and opening a market
for the sale of the productions he rears. Crops have
been grown, and articles produced, and labour be-
stowed, because he who sowed knew that he should
reap, and he who laboured was no longer exposed to
the probability of seeing his acquisitions rifled, and
himself hunted after, by the marauders whom his pros-
perity had attracted.
It is not to be denied that there were great difficul-
ties in the outset. The trade in man has its attractions
— it combines the hazard of the chase, with the name
and the profits of merchandize. It affords a field for the
exercise of skill — for the display of courage — for the
THE GOLD COAST. 393
employment of stratagem — for the gratification of re-
venge. It calls forth all those martial passions, in
which savages, and others than savages, conceive that
all glory resides. To somej no doubt, it yielded wealth :
a successful sally — a fortunate adventure — a sudden
and daring surprise — rendered a profit larger than
a month's labour would produce. It was, more-
over, the inveterate custom of the country. The
inhabitants knew the art of kidnapping, and knew
no other art : there seemed to them no other way
by which they could obtain those supplies of foreign
manufacture and produce, which long habit had ren-
dered necessaries of life.
These difficulties stood in the way of the effectual
abolition of the Slave Trade : they were only to be
overcome by proving to the natives experimentally
that it was their interest to suppress it; in other words,
that they would gain by the sale of their productions
a larger amount of those foreign luxuries which they
craved, than by the sale of man. It was therefore
necessary to create some other species of traffic,
whereby the native could procure his wonted supplies.
This end could not have been effected without the
aid of resident merchants and a local government :
the one, to afford a perpetual and ready supply of the
articles which the African required, and to urge him
to provide the goods which would be taken in ex-
change ; the other, to protect legitimate commerce,
and to redress, and, if needful, to punish the exporta-
tion of slaves.
394 THE REMEDY.
The experiment has been successful. The diffi-
culties and perils which, after the Abolition law,
attached to the Slave Trade, called into existence
various articles of commerce previously unknown.
The soil, which formerly did not yield sufficient for
the sustenance of the inhabitants, now exports a
very large amount of corn to Madeira ; and the
natives, as we are expressly told by the governor,
are better supplied with European and other mer-
chandize than formerly, when it was the chief mart
for slaves.
It does not diminish my satisfaction to know that
this result was brought about by slow degrees. For
many years after the Slave Trade was abolished by
law, the conflict between lawful and unlawful trade
continued. It was not likely that the natives would
be weaned in a moment from the customs of their
forefathers, or by anything short of a succession
of experiments. But innocent commerce has at
length fairly Avon the victory, and the last case which
occurred is thus described. I quote it, because the
narrative proves that prior to 1830, our influence
had checked the Slave Trade ; and because it inci-
dentally shows, in an official form, the customary
horrors of the traffic, which, as far as the Gold Coast
extends, we have been so happy as to repress.
" In the month of January, 1830, the king of
Apollonia, an ally, though not a dependent on the
British government, despatched messengers to Cape
Coast Castle, to intimate that a Spanish slaver had
THE GOLD COAST. 395
anchored off Apollonia fort, the captain of which
asserted, that he had obtained the president's leave to
purchase a cargo of slaves, and had already landed
goods for that purpose ; that lie (the king of Apol-
lonia) wished to ascertain whether there was any
truth in the Spanish captain's assertion, as he
should certainly furnish him with no slaves, with-
out the full consent and permission of the president.
The president, in reply to this message, highly
commended the conduct of the king of Apollonia, as
a reward for which he sent him a handsome present,
at the same time strictly prohibiting him from ex-
porting, or permitting to be exported, a single slave,
and explaining to him the British laws on that
subject.
" In the mean time, the king had contrived, by
fair promises, to get into his possession the whole of
the Spanish cargo of goods ; and when his messen-
gers returned from Cape Coast Castle, he flatly re-
fused to deliver a single slave, or return the cargo.
The Spanish captain managed, however, to get on
board his vessel several of the king's family, and in-
timated to him, that, unless the slaves contracted for
were furnished immediately, he would certainly carry
them (the king's hostages) off the coast ; whereupon
the king, mustering his more immediate attendants
and adherents, sallied out into the town, in the night
time, and seizing all without distinction whom he
could find, sent them, to the number of 360, on board
2 D
396 THE REMEDY.
in irons, at daybreak, receiving in return the per-
sons detained as hostages.
" Here were 360 free people, living in their own
houses, in perfect peace and apparent security, seized
without the shadow of pretext, by a rapacious and
remorseless tyrant, whom they had been taught to
look up to as their father and protector. One of
them, a Mulatto girl, about sixteen or seventeen years
of age, was afterwards redeemed, and she described
the consternation and horror of the poor people,
when they found themselves ironed in the slaver's
hold."
In a letter which I received from Governor
M'Lean, dated 28th September, 1838, he again ad-
verts to the formerly disordered state of the colony,
which he thus contrasts with its present condition : —
" In 1830, all communication with Ashantee, and
through it with the interior, had been entirely stopped
for 10 years previously ; and the only trade done
was for what gold and ivory could be procured in the
districts adjoining the coast. The whole country
was one scene of oppression, cruelty, and disorder ;
so much so, that a trader dared not go twenty miles
into the ' bush.' At present our communication with
the interior is as free and safe as between England
and Scotland; single messengers can, and do, travel
from one end of the country to the other with perfect
safety ; and no man can oppress another with im-
punity." Such is the important change which a local
THE GOLD COAST. 397
government, with but limited resources at its com-
mand, has been enabled to effect throughout this ex-
tensive territory, in the short period of eight years,
and principally by means of a strict and impartial
administration of justice. The natives, long used to
the most cruel tyranny, warmly appreciate their pre-
sent mild and equal system of government, and rely,
with perfect confidence, upon the integrity of their
rulers. The consequence is, the trade of the Gold
Coast already repays more than twenty-fold the sum
granted by Parliament for the support of the local
establishment.* Its exports to Great Britain amount
to 160,000/. per annum, forming one-fifth of the
whole commerce of Africa ; although the country is
by no means so fertile as many other parts of that
continent, and has not the advantage of navigable
rivers.
It is also gratifying to find that, through the labours
of the Wesleyan missionaries, Christianity is making
considerable progress in this part of Africa. The
Rev. T. B. Freeman, in a letter to the parent So-
ciety, dated 10th October, 1838, after describing in
animated terms, the prosperous state of the mission,
and the field which is now open for Christian enter-
prise, communicates the following interesting intel-
ligence : — " I have received information, via Fer-
nando Po, that several liberated Africans in the
Island of Jamaica, who are members of our Society in
the Kingston circuit, and who are natives of Cape
* United Service Journal, March, 1838.
2 d 2
398 THE REMEDY.
Coast, Annamaboe, and Accra, and other places
along the western coast of Africa which are under
the British flag, are very anxious to return to their
native land. But they are afraid of being again torn
away from their homes, and exposed to all the horrors
of slavery ; and, secondly, of being deprived of those
Christian privileges which they now enjoy. Please
to inform them that their fears are groundless ; that
their persons and property will here be perfectly
safe, and that several hundreds of their countrymen
have embraced the truths of Christianity. They can
also have employment as soon as they arrive here."
A striking contrast to the state of the Gold Coast
is presented by the town of Wydah, situated on the
Bight of Benin. This place is the residence of the
notorious De Sousa, the slave-broker of the king of
Dahomey, and it enjoys very little, if any, legitimate
trade. The captain of a merchant-ship states, that he
has seen there 28 slave vessels under Spanish and Bra-
zilian colours. "These vessels," he observes, "would
carry, on an average, 350 or 400 slaves each. On
returning, ten months after, I have seen several of
these vessels in the same roadstead, having in the
interim completed a slavery voyage to Brazil and
back."
To these portions of Africa, in particular, Great
Britain owes a heavy debt of justice, for the many
years of misery which she inflicted upon them by
making them the seats of the Slave Trade ; a debt,
which she can only hope to repay, by carrying out the
the'^gold coast— wydah. 399
salutary measures which have proved so successful
in the case of the Gold Coast. But as the injury
was not limited to these localities only, so her redress
should not terminate there: in order that her com-
pensation may be ample, and her remedy efficient,
they must be applied nearer the sources of the evil.
Our efforts, as far as they have gone, have been suc-
cessful, and although our principal object has not been
attained by them, we have proved what may be effected,
by granting our protection, by encouraging commerce
and agriculture, and by diffusing the blessings of
Christianity. By adopting a similar policy in positions
more favourable, and in connexion with the other mea-
sures which I propose, I am led to believe we shall
effectually check the Slave Trade, and produce a revo-
lution in Africa, still more signal than that which has
been already experienced in our present settlements.
It appears, then, that these three cases, Sierra
Leone, Gambia, and the Gold Coast, as far as they go,
illustrate and strengthen my views. When the errors
which have been committed in their management
shall be rectified, — -when education and Christian
instruction shall prevail, and when an effective im-
pulse shall have been given to commerce and agri-
culture, we, seeing what has already been done, may
reasonably hope that a salutary change will be
effected in this unhappy continent.
A further confirmation of this hope is derived from
the recorded observations of gentlemen, worthy of all
400 THE REMEDY.
confidence, who have collected their opinions on the
spot.
Governor Macarthy, in addressing the merchants
of St. Mary's on the Gambia in a visit he paid them
in 1818, used the following words: — " I consider
the extension of an honourable trade in Africa as
benefiting a considerable portion of the human race.
I anticipate with delight the period when, in lieu of
the horrid traffic in human life, British trade and
industry will spread, and the Christian religion
prevailing over Africa, the inhabitants of this vast
continent will, by their emancipation from moral and
physical slavery, rank among civilized nations." *
General Turner, governor of Sierra Leone, ap-
pears to have been a man of vigorous and enlarged
mind : had he lived, he would probably have done
much for the suppression of the Slave Trade. His
reports are the more interesting to me, because I
find that his views, as to the mode of accomplishing
that object, closely correspond with those which I
have adopted. He appears to think that the aboli-
tion is to be effected by means of treaties with the
native powers ; by engaging them to lend their assist-
ance ; by thus rooting out the Slave-trader from his
usual field of exertion ; and by the employment of
steamers on the coast : above all, by the influence of
legitimate commerce.
* Nineteenth Report of Church Missionary Society.
DESPATCHES OF GOVERNOR TURNER. 401
Extracts from Despatches from Major-General
Turner, late Governor of Sierra Leone.
Dated 20th July, 1825.
" The great increase of the Slave Trade in this
neighbourhood, together with the inadequacy of the
ships of war on the station, have caused me to turn
my attention seriously to the evil, as well as to the
remedy for it ; and whilst I admit the evil to exist
to a shameful extent, I am happy to say, that I will
undertake, at little or no expense, without the aid of
the navy, without compromising the government,
and without risk of failure, to complete in six months
such arrangements as will prevent any vessel, of any
nation, carrying away a cargo of slaves from Western
Africa ; and I pledge myself that the completion of
these measures will produce to Africa more peace and
good order, more industry, prosperity, and morality,
— and to England, a larger and better field for the
exercise of her benevolence;
# ■» * *
" England should prevent the collection of these
unhappy victims, and bestow her care upon nations
with knowledge to appreciate, and character to retain
the advantage of an intercourse with her : that there
are such nations within our reach, and that they are
anxious to open a communication with us, is within
my knowledge ; and that I will accomplish all these
objects without much expense, if approved of, I pledge
myself. If there should be any doubt, I should beg
that those who know me best maybe referred to, whe-
402 THE REMEDY.
ther I am likely to engage in wild, visionary schemes.
Should such measures be approved of, all I want
from England are two small steam-boats.
" These two boats, in addition to the one already
ordered for the general work of this extended com-
mand, will be enough to occupy and maintain our
sovereignty over the various rivers from Senegal to
the Gold Coast — a sovereignty winch I will procure
from the natives, if approved of, at a small expense; and
I will establish and maintain the British flag on them,
which will cause them to be considered British waters,
and give us the power to exclude all nations from them."
Dated }8th October, 1825.
" On approaching the Sherbro, J caused the king
and chiefs of the maritime districts engaged in the
war, to be assembled ; and as they had already applied
to me for protection against their enemies, I informed
them that the only condition upon which I would
grant them effectual security would be the giving up
for ever the Slave Trade, making over to me for the
King of England the sovereignty of their territories,
acknowledging the laws of England, laying down
their arms in the present Avar, and agreeing never to
undertake any other without the consent of the go-
vernment of Sierra Leone for the time being. They
immediately agreed to these terms, and a treaty was
accordingly signed and ratified, in presence of all the
people.
* * * »
" By this treaty, upwards of 100 miles of sea-coast
DESPATCHES OF GOVERNOR TURNER. 403
are added to this colony ; a circumstance which, in this
particular case, will tend greatly to increase its trade
and general prosperity.
* # # #
" As regards the Slave Trade the district now
ceded has, for many years back, been the theatre of
its most active operations in this or perhaps any
other part of the coast ; and the best information that
I can collect warrants my stating the number an-
nually exported at not less than 15,000, all of whom
will in future be employed in cultivating the soil,
preparing and collecting articles of export, and im-
proving their own condition.
* * . # *
" The other parties engaged in the war, and who
are an inland people, I sent a messenger to, to desire
that they would no longer carry on the war, as I had
taken the country under my protection ; they ex-
pressed their willingness for peace, and some of the
principal men among them came down and begged to
be taken under our 'protection, which was done. I
could not remain long enough in the Sherbro to re-
ceive the more distant ones ; but I make no doubt I
shall be able to bring about a general peace through-
out these countries, and cause the kings and chiefs to
turn their attention to more humane and profitable
pursuits.
* * * *
" The affairs of this colony (Sierra Leone) are
taking a much wider range, and the valuable pro-
404 THE REMEDY.
ducts of the interior are finding their way here in
much larger proportion than formerly, and the influx
of strangers from very distant nations is very great.
The name and character of the colony are spreading
rapidly, as is proved by the repeated messengers sent
to me from the rulers of distant nations, and the
eagerness with ivhich they seek our friendship and
alliance. Our influence and authority with the
smaller states immediately around are getting greater,
and the beneficial results very visible. * * * *
" The most powerful of them, the king of the Man-
dingoes, has placed himself under our orders."
Bated 1st November, 1825.
" I have just received from chiefs to the northward
of this colony, an offer to give us the sovereignty of
their country, and to abolish for ever the Slave Trade,
receiving, in return, our protection and the benefits of
a free trade with us."
Dated 20th December, 1823.
Reports the success of his expedition up the rivers
Rokell and Port Logo, which, by their junction,
form the river and harbour of Sierra Leone. The
Rokell is the direct route to the countries round the
source of the Niger.
* * * *
Having overcome the difficulties which had called
for his active interference, General Turner entered
into a Convention with the people, the substance of
which I give in his own words : —
"The Convention, in the first place, puts an eilec-
DESPATCHES OF GOVERNOR TURNER. 405
tive stop to all slave-trading, to internal wars, a
scourge more baneful to Africa than the Slave Trade
itself, and gives security and stability to persons and
property : it causes the chiefs and others to become
industrious, in order to procure, either by cultivation
or trade, those articles of luxury which they for-
merly acquired by the sale of slaves or plunder in
war; it will lead to civilization, morality, and a
desire of education and useful knowledge, by show-
ing the advantage which educated men will have in
trade over uneducated ones ; and the becoming pro-
vinces of this government will create a strong desire
to learn our language and religion.
" To us it will have the effect of greatly extend-
ing the sphere of our mercantile transactions, by
enabling agents and travellers to pass through the
country in security, of extending and improving our
geographical knowledge, of obtaining correct infor-
mation of the power, wealth, and resources of each
nation, and thereby forming, in the course of time,
a large outlet for our manufactured goods, and of
receiving, in return, valuable raw materials, and of
spreading throughout distant nations impressions of
our wealth, influence, and greatness. These facts
are already beginning to be felt, and the surrounding
countries generally, (with the exception of a few
factious chiefs who live by plundering travellers,)
aware of the advantage of being connected with
Sierra Leone, are petitioning this Government to
interfere to put an end to their wars, and to take
406 THE REMEDY.
them under its protection. Your Lordship will
observe, that the public are put to no expense for
the accomplishment of these objects ; that there is
no increase of our military establishments required.
# * # *
" I would submit that a small yearly salary should
be given to each native chief placed in charge of these
provinces or districts, from 50/. to 100/. per year."
I have given these extracts at considerable length,
because they are highly valuable, as showing, on the
testimony of a person who had great experience, that
the true way to suppress the Slave Trade, and to
extricate Africa from its present abyss of misery, is
to be found in friendly intercourse with the natives ;
in the encouragement of their legitimate trade ; in
the cultivation of the soil, and in alliances with them
for the suppression of the Slave traffic. Acting upon
this system, he says, " I have little doubt but I shall
have the honour, ere long, to announce to your Lord-
ship the total abolition of the Slave Trade for 1000
miles around me, and a tenfold increase to the trade
of this colony."
I may be permitted to relate the melancholy, but
to me highly interesting termination of the career
of this officer. In the early part of the spring of
1826, he proceeded to the Sherbro country, for the
purpose of consolidating those arrangements for the
abolition of the Slave Trade which he had entered
into with the king and the native chiefs. On his
PROCEEDINGS OF GOVERNOR TURNER. 407
arrival at the Sherbro, he discovered, that the great
slave-traders, who had retired from that district on
the signing of the convention, prohibiting the export-
ation of slaves, had joined with those of the Gallinas,
and had come to the resolution of establishing the
Slave Trade by force, even in the districts where it
had been voluntarily given up by the native chiefs,
and were then assembled in force up the Boom river,
seizing our people, and putting at defiance our power
and our rights.
Upon this band of miscreants he made a success-
ful attack, and he concludes his despatch on the 2nd
of March, 1826, by saying: " After carrying away
the guns and stores, and destroying by fire the town
and neighbourhood, we embarked, and got safely to
the shipping in the Sherbro on the 23rd, after de-
stroying the two principal strongholds, with eight
smaller towns, where these wretches kept their
victims in chains, until the ships were ready to receive
them ; and I sincerely trust that this lesson will teach
the deluded of this country not to put further faith
in the vain boastings of these wicked people, who,
by administering to the worst passions of the igno-
rant and unfortunate inhabitants, not only depopu-
late and turn into deserts the most fertile plains
which I have ever seen, but so blunt their feelings,
and brutalize their natures, that, for a few bottles of
rum and heads of tobacco, the parent is found, with-
out remorse, casting away his offspring ; each village
is engaged against the other, for the purpose of
408 THE REMEDY,
making prisoners ; and men, like beasts of prey, are
ever on the watch to seize their neighbours and their
fellow-men."
I received an account of this expedition from a
gentleman who joined it as a volunteer. He spoke
of the conduct of General Turner with admiration.
Not content with heading the attack, and command-
in 2: the boats in the descent, he took with his own
hands the soundings of every part of the river, and
underwent more physical toil than the lowest of the
crew. He paid the greatest attention to the health
of all his party, and administered medicine to them
upon the slightest symptom of incipient fever. The
only point of which he was regardless was his own
health ; and to this imprudence he fell a victim. One
of his officers ventured to remonstrate with him on the
subject, and told him that he saw he was indisposed.
The General replied, that nothing could touch his iron
constitution ; that he never had taken a dose of physic,
and never would. On his arrival at Sierra Leone, he
wrote with his own hands the despatch dated March
2nd, from which I have already made quotations. On
the 3rd of March he begins a short letter to Lord
Bathurst thus : — " I lament exceedingly that an at-
tack of fever got up the Boom river should prevent
my having the honour of submitting to your Lord-
ship observations upon the bearings which the cir-
cumstances detailed in my despatch of the 2nd inst.
have upon the state of this unhappy country, and the
prospects which they hold out, for a great revolution
PROCEEDINGS OF GOVERNOR TURNER, 409
in the affairs of the inhabitants." After adverting, in
three lines to the expedition, he says : — "Although
the bar of the Gallinas river is an extremely diffi-
cult and hazardous undertaking, I think that, by
blockading them, and making a strong party there,
I shall completely break up the Slave Trade, and stop
for ever, from those shores, the export of near
30,000 slaves annually, substituting agriculture, se-
curity of person and property, industry, civilization,
and knowledge of the Christian religion. At
all events, if my health is restored, I will do my
best."
According to my informant, he found the General
at his desk, quite insensible, with his pen still in his
hand, and this letter before him. It is well worth
notice that, in his last words, he should have dwelt
upon the extinction of the Slave Trade, by the substi-
tution of agriculture, security of person and property,
industry, civilization, and knowledge of the Christian
religion.
The effect of General Turner's measures are thus
described by his successor, in a despatch, dated 2nd
of July, 1826 :—
" The measures adopted by General Turner have
secured peace, safety, and tranquillity to a large
extent of country, have destroyed an annual export
of at least 1 5,000 slaves, and have prevented all the
wretchedness, misery, and bloodshed which would
otherwise have attended the making of these slaves.
410 THE REMEDY.
" More real service has been performed by him
towards the abolition of the Slave Trade, and that,
too, permanently, should his measures be followed
up, than by all the other means employed by His
Majesty's Government for that purpose."
I cannot express how deeply I deplore that twelve
years should have elapsed, in which little or nothing
has been done by the Government in furtherance of
views so sound, so enlightened, and so promising.
Colonel Nicholls, who was Governor of Fernando
Po, during our occupation of that island, and who
has had, perhaps, as much knowledge, derived from
experience, as any man, of the nature of the Slave
Trade, and of the most effectual modes of pre-
venting it, in a memorial to Government in 1830,
thus describes his general view : —
" There is one means, and I am persuaded but
one effectual means, of destroying the Slave Trade,
which is, by introducing a liberal and well-regulated
system of commerce on the coast of Africa. At
present, the African is led to depend principally
on the slave-dealers for his supplies of manufactured
articles, of which he is so fond, and stands so much
in need. The individuals engaged in this traffic are
persons of the most infamous and unprincipled de-
scription : they come in their ships to the mouths of
the different unexplored rivers, where they land a
quantity of trade goods of the worst kind, and leav-
ing their supercargoes to exchange them with the
OPINION OF GOVEENOR NICHOLLS. 411
chiefs for slaves, return to the sea whilst their cargoes
are collecting, where, as pirates, they rob our mer-
chant-ships, murder their crews, and, when glutted
with plunder, return to the coast to ship their victims,
for whom they pay about 71. or 8/. a-piece, and sell
them for 70/., 80/., or 100/. each. In conducting the
barter for these poor creatures with the chiefs, the
slavers are frequently guilty of every sort of violence
and injustice. Of this the chiefs are well aware,
and submit to it only because they have no redress.
Were it put in their power to procure better manu-
factured goods from merchants who would have some
regard to justice and fair dealing in their transactions
with them, they would eagerly give them the prefer-
ence, particularly if they were protected from the
resentment of the slave-dealers.
" I will give, as nearly as I can recollect, the sub-
stance of a conversation which passed between one of
the native chiefs and myself on this subject. I began
by asking him how he could act so unwisely as to
sell his countrymen for 11. or 8/., when he might
render them so much more profitable to him, by
making them labour ? The chief mused awhile, and
then said, * If you will show me how this is to b%
done, I will take your advice.' I asked him how
much palm-oil a man could collect during the season ?
c From one to two tuns,' was his answer. I then
inquired, how a man could be employed when it was
not the palm-oil season ? ' In cutting down and
squaring wood, gathering elephants' teeth, tending
2 E
412 THE REMEDY.
cattle, and cultivating rice, corn, and yams,' was the
reply. I then said to him, e Suppose a man collects
a tun and a half of palm-oil in a season ; that, accord-
ing to its present value, will amount to 11/. or 121. ;
and suppose he picks up one elephant's tooth, the
value of which is about 2*. per lb., the weight fre-
quently fifty pounds ; but reckon it at one-half that
weight, that will be 21. 10s. more. The value of
these two articles alone will be nearly double what
his price brings you, if you sell him ; and this he would
bring you every year, allowing him all the other kinds
of his labour for his own maintenance. Upon this
simple calculation, the truth of which, cannot be de-
nied, what a loser you are by selling him. Besides,
you get goods inferior, both in quality and quantity,
to those you could procure by exchanging the produce
of this man's labour with British merchants.' The
chief acknowledged I was right ; but said that, when
I was gone, the slavers would come, and if he did not
get slaves for them, they would burn his town, and
perhaps take away himself and his family, in place of
the slaves they expected him to collect for them ; but
that if this could be prevented, he would sell no more
slaves. I then told him, if he promised this, I would
come to his assistance, in case the slavers committed
any violence against him, and put the miscreants in
his power : that I should advise him to assemble his
head-men, and try and punish the delinquents by his
own law, and I thought they would not trouble him
again. I assured him, that he and his countrymen
OPINION OP GOVERNOR NICHOLLS. 413
were considered by us as much better men than these
slavers, and that we would protect them if they would
trade fairly with us in other produce than slaves.
" This chief drove off the first slaver that came, as
I directed him : he is now carrying on a thriving
trade, and his people are more civil and kind to us
than any I have yet seen. I feel convinced that I
could influence all the chiefs along the coast in the
same manner ; but, to be able to effect this, it would
be necessary to have the means of moving from one
place to another, with, a degree of celerity that a
steam-vessel alone could give us. This would be re-
quisite, both to enable us to keep our promise of pro-
tecting the chiefs from the slavers, and also for the
purpose of going up the rivers^ which are at present
unknown to us, with the least possible risk of health,
or loss of time.
" Steam-boats would also be of incalculable use to
commerce, by towing ships over bars and agitated
currents, whilst, as a means of catching the slave-
ships, and protecting the coast from the depredations
of their crews, three steamers would effect more than
the expensive squadron now maintained there. These
three vessels should carry four heavy guns each, be
of as light a draught of water as possible, and be
manned with fifty white * and fifty black men each :
they would not cost one-half as much as one large
frigate, one corvette, and two gun-brigs, whilst they
* Colonel Nicholls now thinks that a much smaller number
of white sailors would be sufficient.
2e2
414 THE REMEDY.
would be an infinitely more efficient means of attain-
ing the end proposed by the use of them. I pledge
myself to put an end to the whole of our expense,
and totally to suppress the Slave Trade in two years.
But if this plan be not adopted, we may go on paying
over and over again for the liberated Africans to the
end of time, Avithout performing anything beneficial
in their behalf."
Mr. Rendall, who was Governor of the Gambia,
(where he died,) it appears, contemplated, some
years ago, a plan for the suppression of the Slave
Trade ; and had made some progress in a letter
intended to be addressed to the Duke of Wellington.
I extract a few passages from it, which will serve to
show, that experience conducted him to the same
conclusion as that which has been arrived at by the
authorities I have already cited. In the introduction,
he says — " Of all the measures calculated to insure
the prosperity of Africa, none promises so well as
the encouragement of its legitimate commerce and
agriculture." He recommends the immediate clear-
ance and cultivation of a district, " which would at
once embrace two of the most important objects ;
viz., the improvement in salubrity, and the pro-
duction of such articles of export as would render the
colony valuable to the mother country." " Give," he
says, " an impulse to industry by establishing model
plantations ; let moral and religious education go
hand in hand; and. thus most firmly do I believe that
the great and benevolent objects of the real friends of
RENDALL. — MCQUEEN. 415
Africa will be most securely attained." — u Govern-
ment," he adds, " must begin, by showing to the
natives the practicability and profit of cultivation."
But he is convinced that the outlay thus required
would be speedily and abundantly repaid. He
speaks of cotton, coffee, indigo, and ginger as being
the produce that would thrive the best.
I now insert some extracts, bearing on the same
points, which I find in Mr. M' Queen's " VieAv of
Northern Central Africa :" —
" There is no efficient way to arrest the progress of
this deep-rooted evil, but to teach the negroes useful
knowledge, and the arts of civilized life. Left to
themselves, the negroes will never effectually accom-
plish this. It must be done by a mighty power, who
will take them under its protection, — a power suffi-
ciently bold, enlightened, and just, to burst asunder
the chains of that grovelling superstition which en-
thrals and debases their minds, and that, with the
voice of authority, can unite the present jarring ele-
ments which exist in Africa, and direct them to
honourable and useful pursuits. Till the native
princes are taught that they may be rich without
selling men, — and till Africa is shown that it is in
the labour and industry of her population, and in the
cultivation of her soil, that true wealth consists, —
and till that population see a power, which can pro-
tect them from such degrading bondage, there can
be no security for liberty or property in Africa ;
416 THE REMEDY.
and, consequently, no wish or hope for improvement
amongst her population.
" It is in Africa that this evil must be rooted out, —
by African hands and African exertions chiefly that
it can be destroyed. It is a waste of time and a
waste of means, an aggravation of the disorder, to
keep lopping off the smaller branches of a malignant,
a vigorous, and reproductive plant, while the root and
stem remain uninjured, carefully supplied with nou-
rishment, and beyond our reach. Half the sums we
have expended in this manner would have rooted
up slavery for ever. Only teach them, and show them
that we will give them more for their produce than
for the hand that rears it, and the work is done. All
other methods and means will prove ineffectual.
" The change contemplated in Africa could not be
wrought in a day. But were we once firmly esta-
blished, in a commanding attitude on the Niger, and
an end put to the two great scourges of Africa, Super-
stition and an external Slave Trade, the progress of
improvement would be rapid, and the advantages
great.
# * * *
" Nothing can be done, — nothing ever will be
done, to alter their present indolent and inactive
mode of life, till justice and general security are spread
throughout these extensive regions. It would be
GOLBERRY. 417
vain to expect industry or exertion on their parts, in
order to procure the comforts and the luxuries of life,
when no one can call anything lie may possess his
own, or where the superior wealth which lie does
possess serves only to mark him out as the prey of
the unfeeling robber or sovereign despot."
The opinions also of travellers, who have visited
different parts of Africa at different times, are very
similar, both as to the capabilities of Africa, and as to
the opposite effects produced by the antagonist sys-
tems of the Slave Trade and legitimate commerce ;
and they concur in declaring that the encourage-
ment of the one ever tends to the destruction of the
other. This truth was admitted even by Golberry,
who was so far from being carried away by the phan-
toms of philanthropy, — that he owns he felt some
difficulty in checking the expression of his " just
indignation" against the " cruel theories" of those
pretended philosophers, who imposed on the vulgar
by decrying the Slave Trade.
"I have also observed," says Golberry, " that this
surface of Africa (all the country between Cape
Blanco and Cape Palmas), is at least 374,400 square
leagues, which is more than a fifth of the total
superficies of this large continent ; and that, if we
should one day be enabled to traverse freely and habi-
tually this extensive space, not only Europe would
discover new sources of wealth, and new objects for
industry, but that, by a natural and inevitable conse-
cmence, the whole of Africa would soon be enlight-
418 THE REMEDY.
ened, and everything which yet remains ambiguous
in the centre of this continent would be laid open to
investigation.
"There is reason to presume that more active
relations, together with agricultural and mercantile
establishments, and wholesome institutions, whose
object should be the instruction and civilization of
the negroes, would, in the course of fifteen years,
augment these products from thirty to more than
sixty millions ;•* and if, during this period, England
and France act in unison — if the Governments of
the two first nations in the world were to proceed,
with emulation, in pursuit of the same object, then,
far from the Slave Trade being augmented, it would
soon diminish to one half, and it would quickly be
abolished by a natural consequence ; the inexhausti-
ble fertility of a soil which the natives would learn
to cultivate, and which has hitherto remained, in a
manner of speaking, abandoned to nature, would
administer to the wants and enjoyments of Europe ;
the African would become civilized ; and the ardent
wishes of a rational philosophy would speedily be
accomplished."
Robertson speaks to the same effect : — " If Africa
is to be made subservient to the views of Europe,
let her have an interest in her own labour, and
that interest will be the strongest and best secu-
rity for her friendship. Show her the advantages
* Francs.
ROBERTSON. — PARK. 419
of industry, and will she deviate so far from the
usual motives which actuate mankind, as not to cul-
tivate such a connexion, in order to improve her
own condition ? There is but one system for us,
which can secure her friendship, and her social in-
tercourse, and that is, an equitable use of our and
her rights."
Park's testimony is similar : — " It cannot, how-
ever, admit of a doubt that all the rich and valu-
able productions, both of the East and West
Indies might easily be naturalized, and brought
to the utmost perfection, in the tropical parts of
this immense continent. Nothing is wanting to
this end but example, to enlighten the minds of
the natives ; and instruction, to enable them to di-
rect their industry to proper objects. It was not
possible for me to behold the wonderful fertility of
the soil, the vast herds of cattle, proper both for
labour and food, and a variety of other circum-
stances favourable to colonization and agriculture,
and reflect, withal, on the means which presented
themselves of a vast inland navigation, without la-
menting that a country, so abundantly gifted and
favoured by nature, should remain in its present
savage and neglected state. Much more did I lament
that a people, of manners and disposition so gentle
and benevolent, should either be left, as they now are,
immersed in the gross and uncomfortable blindness
of pagan superstition, or permitted to become con-
verts to a system of bigotry and fanaticism which,
420 THE REMEDY.
without enlightening the mind, often debases the
heart."
Mr. Laird, discussing the best mode of establishing
trade, and of civilizing Africa, proposes establishing
a chain of British posts up the Niger, and across to
the Gambia : he proposes six or seven stations, and
says:— "There are two ways in which this might
be done with comparative economy : the one, by
merely establishing a trading post; the other, by
acquiring a small territory and importing West Indian
and American free negroes, who would bring with
them the knowledge they have acquired in the cul-
tivation of sugar and other tropical produce, and
would form, in fact, agricultural schools for the
benefit of the surrounding population."
"By the Niger, the whole of Western Africa
would be embraced ; by the Sharry (which I have
no doubt will be found navigable to the meridian of
25° east longitude) a communication would be opened
with all the nations inhabiting the unknown countries
between the Niger and the Nile. British influence
and enterprise would thereby penetrate into the re-
motest recesses of the country; one hundred millions
of people would be brought into direct contact with
the civilized world ; new and boundless markets
would be opened to our manufactures ; a continent
teeming with inexhaustible fertility would yield her
riches to our traders ; not merely a nation, but hun-
dreds of nations, would be awakened from the
lethargy of centuries, and become useful and active
LAIBD.— LANDER.™ GRAY. 421
members of the great commonwealth of mankind ;
and every British station would become a centre from
whence religion and commerce would radiate their
influence over the surrounding country. Who can
calculate the effect that would be produced, if such
a plan were followed out, and Africa, freed from her
chains, moral and physical, allowed to develope her
energies in peace and security ? No parallel can be
drawn, no comparison can be instituted, between
Africa enslaved, and Africa free and unfettered."
Lander confirms these views : — " It is more than
probable, as we have now ascertained, that a water
communication may be carried on with so extensive
a part of the interior of Africa, that a consider-
able trade will be opened with the country through
which we have passed. The natives only require
to know what is wanted from them, and to be shown
what they will have in return, and much produce
that is now lost, from neglect, will be turned to a
considerable account. The countries situated on
the banks of the Niger will become frequented
from all the adjacent parts, and this magnificent
stream will assume an appearance it has never yet
displayed."
Major Gray, summing up the means for bringing
the Africans to a state of civilization, and relieving
the people from the tyranny of their chiefs, says, —
" It has occurred to me there are no means more
available, and, I may add, more speedily practicable,
422 THE REMEDY.
than the enlargement of our intercourse with the
people, and the encouragement and protection of the
internal commerce of Africa. By this, we can im-
prove them in the way of example ; by the other, we
can benefit them and ourselves in the way of inter-
change of commodity : our habits and our manners
will gain upon them in time, and our skill tend to
stimulate and encourage theirs."
" By increasing their commerce, we also obtain
another happy consummation, we give them employ-
ment, and we consequently, to a certain extent, secure
them from the incessant meddling of their maraboos.
We could congregate them in greater numbers to-
gether, and therefore the more readily instruct them ;
and I may venture to add, that if a fair trial of zeal
were used in such a delightful employment, within
a very few years they would prove themselves not
unfitted for the enjoyment of liberal institutions."
"That there are powers of mind in the African,
it were quite idle to dispute ; that the productions of
the country are capable of being beneficially em-
ployed must, I think, be equally incontestable to any
one who has carefully perused the preceding pages ;
and, to act with honesty, we should not allow both, or
either, to lie for ever dormant."
" The European governments," says Burckhardt,
" who have settlements on the coasts of Africa, may
contribute to it by commerce, and by the introduction
among the negroes of arts and industry."
ALLEN. 423
Capt. W. Allen, R.N.,* in a letter addressed to me
August, 1839, observes : — " I have read your ' Remedy'
with great interest and attention, the more so, as I find
embodied in it all the ideas I had formed on the same
subject, deduced from observations written on the
spot."
There is no species of argument which carries with
it a greater force of conviction to my mind, than the
concurrence of a variety of persons, who, being com-
petent to judge, and having opportunities of forming
a sound judgment, examine a given object with very
different purposes, from very different points of view,
yet arrive, without concert, or previous communica-
tion, at the same conclusion. In the case before us,
we collect the unpublished despatches, letters, and
journals of the several Governors of Sierra Leone,
Fernando Po, the Gambia, and the Gold Coast. These
documents were written at different times, with no
view to publication, and there was no connection
between the officers who wrote them. Differing on
many points, they harmonise exactly on those which
affect my case. Each speaks of the exuberant fer-
tility of the soil ; each laments the desolation which,
in spite of nature, prevails ; and each looks to the
cultivation of those fertile lands, and to the growth
of legitimate commerce, as the remedy to the distrac-
tions of Africa, and the horrors of the Slave Trade.
For example, it appears that General Turner at
* Captain W. Allen was employed by the Admiralty to ascend
the Niger in Laird and Oldfield's expedition.
424 THE REMEDY.
Sierra Leone, and Colonel Nicolls of Fernando Po,
had in view much such a plan as I have suggested,
when they spoke in their despatches of putting an
end to the Slave Trade in two or three years. This
unconscious union between themselves is not all.
The views of these gentlemen correspond with those
which I find in the private journals of the Mission-
aries, who have gathered their experience, and formed
their opinion, while labouring among the native tribes
of the Gambia. That which is the opinion of these
soldiers and of these teachers of religion turns out to
be the opinion of the most distinguished travellers
and of intelligent traders. Captain Becroft, who
traded on the Western Coast, and Captain Raymond,
who did the same on the Eastern, tell me, — that
trade, springing from the cultivation of the soil, will,
and that nothing else will, abolish the Slave Trade.
This uniformity of opinion between governors and
missionaries, travellers and traders, stops not here.
Mr. M'Queen and Mr. Clarkson,* who have spent
their lives in studying Africa, but not in the same
school, here cease to differ. Mr. Clarkson thus con-
cludes a long letter to me, dated November 20th,
1838 (after having noticed and approved each sug-
gestion I had made, particularly the purchase of a
large tract of country, for the establishment of pattern
farms, and the selection of Fernando Po) : —
" Upon the whole, it is my opinion that, if Govern-
* For Mr. Clarkson's judgment on the views and principles
staled in this book, see Appendix D.
m'queen. 425
ment would make the settlements which you have
pointed out ; if they were to substitute steamers in the
place of sailing ships ; if they were, by annual presents,
to work upon the native chiefs ; if they were to buy
the land upon which their settlements would be built,
and introduce pattern farms for the cultivation of cot-
ton, indigo, rice, or whatever other tropical production
they might think fit, they might as certainly count upon
the abolition of the Slave Trade, even in a short time,
as upon any unknown event, which men might expect
to be produced, from right reasoning, or by going the
right way to work, in order to produce it. As far as
our knowledge of Africa, and African manners, cus-
toms, and dispositions goes, a better plan could not be
devised — no other plan, in short, could answer. Had
this plan been followed from the first, it would have
done wonders for Africa by this time, and it would
do much for us now : in two years from the trial of it
it would become doubtful, whether it was worth while
to carry on the Slave Trade ; and in five years I have
no doubt that it would be generally, though, perhaps,
not totally, abandoned. Depend upon it, 'there is no
way of civilizing and christianizing Africa, which all
good men must look to, but this." " Teach them,"
says Mr. M'Queen, " that we will give them more
for their produce, than for the hand that rears it, and
the work is done. All other methods and means
will prove ineffectual."
Other illustrations of this coincidence might be
quoted. The Society of Friends, anxious to benefit
426 THE REMEDY.
Africa, could devise no better means, than the estab-
lishment of a school and a farm in the neighbourhood
of St. Mary's. The experiment failed, or it seemed
to fail, owing to the death of the agent whom they
had sent ; but it was with no small pleasure that I
found, in the papers of the brother of a deceased
governor of the colony, this evidence that their
labours were not entirely lost. After stating that the
Society had formerly established a school and a farm
on a point of land forming Cape St. Mary's, " as
eligible a spot for such an undertaking as could be
found in the country," he goes on to say, "The natives
of the neighbourhood must have observed, with some
degree of attention, the mode adopted by these settlers
in their agricultural pursuits. Indeed, it must be
inferred that many of them assisted on the works of
the farm, as at this date (viz. 14 years after) they
conduct matters in a more neat and satisfactory man-
ner than is to be observed in other parts of the
country. Their grounds are well cleaned and en-
closed ; vegetation, of one kind or another, appears
to be kept up during the year ; the quality of their
articles is superior to their neighbours ; and alto-
gether there is a superiority among these people, a
neatness about their persons and villages, that pleases
the eye, particularly as these things do not exist in
other parts of the country. The old chief of the
district loses no opportunity of making the most par-
ticular inquiries after his friends the Quakers, and
of expressing his regret that such good people should
COINCIDENCE OF OPINIONS. 427
not have remained amongst them, as their kindness
wilJ ever live in the memory of the inhabitants. The
chief and his sons are worthy good folks, and much
attached to the English. ' The seeds which Mr. W.
Allen and other gentlemen have sent to the Gambia
have been of infinite service, in improving the quality
of the cotton and rice."*
I hardly know anything more encouraging than the
facts which have thus unexpectedly come to light.
Here an effort has been made, exactly in conformity
with the views which I am endeavouring to urge, but
it was soon abandoned ; yet the effect of that imper-
fect experiment is still visible in the improvement
of the face of the country, and in the manifest
distinction between that district which had been
thus befriended, and the desolate regions which sur-
round it.
The fact, too, that these simple people retain a
lively and grateful recollection of their benefactors,
and cease not to pant for their return, proves that in
the minds of the people, as well as in the quality of
the soil, there are materials on which we may work.
When so much was effected by a slight effort, what
may we not expect to be accomplished, when the
same merciful measures shall be adopted permanently,
and upon a large scale 1
One further coincidence, and not the least remark-
able, remains to be stated. I gave a description
on a former occasionf of a slave-hunt, or gazzua,
* Rendall. f Page 91 of this edition.
2 F
428 THE REMEDY.
which was perpetrated in the dominions, and by
the permission of the Pasha of Egypt. Some
strong representations of the impolicy and atrocity
of such proceedings were made to him by some of
our countrymen, particularly by Dr. Bowring.* And
I have now to describe the influence which these have
exercised over his conduct. f From a manuscript
which purports to be an official account of the jour-
ney of his Highness to Soudan, of the views in which
it originated, and of the policy which was adopted
with regard to the natives, I extract the following
particulars. In the autumn of 1838 the Pasha's
attention was turned to his savage territory of Sou-
dan, and he resolved to take measures for the abolition
of the Slave Trade, and to introduce a reformation in
the customs, commerce, and agriculture of the in-
habitants : for this purpose he repaired thither in
person, accompanied by his usual attendants, and
several scientific persons, collected not only from his
own country, but from the continent of Europe. He
embarked in a steam-boat, October 15th, 1838. In
passing the cataracts, he had to endure some hard*
* Vide Appendix E., p. 564, for an extract from a letter from
Sir. W. H. Pearson to Mr. Buxton, junior, containing an account
of that gentleman's visit on board a slave-ship on the Nile.
t The consul at Alexandria, of date 5th May, 1838, narrates a
conversation which he had had with Mahommed Ali, in which the
pasha said that he would not permit his officers in the interior to
seize slaves : and he adds that the pasha himself does not now
purchase any more slaves for his own use or service. — Class D.,
1838-U, p. 14.
PASHA OF EGYPT. 429
ships, and was exposed to considerable danger.
After passing the first cataract, he had to remain
during a night without provisions or attendance : in
the attempt to pass the second, the boat in which he
was seated was dashed violently on the rocks, and it
was with difficulty that he effected his escape, while
the vessel was carried away by the current. On the
eleventh of November, the cataract of Annek was
reached : it appears from the narrative, that this was
the first attempt that was ever made to pass it : from
Dongola, he went across the desert to Kartoum, the
capital of Sennaar, on the confluence of the Blue and
the White Nile ; he proceeded along the Blue Nile,
and there was joined by some pupils of the schools
of language and mineralogy. At Fazoglo, hearing
of depredations, committed, according to custom, by
a tribe of mountaineers on their more feeble neigh-
bours, he despatched a force against them, under the
command of a superior officer, who returned with
540 prisoners. His Highness had them brought
before him, and spoke to them at great length on
the odiousness and barbarity of stealing and selling
their fellow-creatures ; then, wishing to join example
to precept, he permitted them to depart, after having
distributed to every one ten days' provisions and
given dresses to five of the chiefs. Learning that
some prisoners had been taken at Kordofan, he
ordered them to be dismissed, with permission to
return home, or to establish themselves as cultivators
on the banks of the White Nile, issuing at the same
2 f 2
4dO THE REMEDY.
time a manifesto, declaring that slave-hunting was
strictly forbidden ; and that if any quarrels should
arise between neighbouring tribes, their differ-
ences were to be brought before the Governor-
general, who was commissioned to decide them.
At length he arrived at the mouth of Fazangoro,
where, after inspecting the gold mines, he laid the
foundations of a town, which is to be called by his
own name, Mohammed Ali, and to contain houses for
fifteen hundred families. The chiefs of the country
showed their readiness to co-operate with him, by
offering a much larger force for the working of the
mines : this however he declined. We are expressly
told, that he pays his workmen wages, and provides
them with dresses adapted to the climate : also, that
he granted land to Arab agriculturists for the form-
ation of model farms, supplied them with the neces-
sary implements and animals, and declared them to be
exempt from taxes for five years. The land of Sennaar
is extremely fertile ; it readily returns sixty for one ;
the dourah grows quickly and produces very rich ears ;
animals and wood abound ; cotton succeeds wonder-
fully, almost without cost, and it produces more
wool than that of Egypt, which is cultivated at a great
expense. Hitherto, however, cultivation has been
entirely neglected. The Pasha collected round him a
great number of the sheikhs, made them presents, and
addressed them in a speech, remarkable not only
for its good sense, but for the quarter from whence
it was delivered. " The people of other parts of the
THE PASHA OF EGYPT. 431
world were formerly savages ; they have had in-
structors, and, by labour and perseverance, they have
civilized themselves ; you have heads and hands like
them ; do as they have done : you also will raise your-
selves to the rank of men ; you will acquire great
riches, and will taste enjoyments of which you can at
present, from your profound ignorance, form no con-
ception. Nothing is wanting for this purpose : you
have a great quantity of land, cattle, and wood : your
population is numerous, the men strong, and the wo-
men fruitful. Up to the present time you have had no
guide : you have one now : — it is I ! — I will lead you
to civilization and happiness. The world is divided
into five great parts ; that which 3^011 occupy is called
Africa : in every country, except this, the value of
labour is understood, and a taste for good and useful
things prevails ; men devote themselves with ardour to
commerce, which produces wealth, pleasure, and glory
— words, which you cannot even comprehend. Egypt
itself is not an extensive country ; yet, thanks to la-
bour and the industry of its inhabitants, it is rich,
and will become more so : distant provinces are ac-
quainted with it ; and the territory of Sennaar, which
is twenty times larger than Egypt, produces almost
nothing, because its inhabitants remain as idle as if
they were without life. Understand well that la-
bour produces all things ; and that without labour
nothing can be had."
His Highness then explained to them, in detail,
the advantages of agriculture and commerce. His
432 THE KEMEDY e
auditors; astonished at what they heard, begged him
earnestly to take them into Egypt, that they might
be instructed in those arts. " It would be better,"
replied his Highness, " that you should send your
children there ; they will learn more easily, because
they are younger, and will remain longer useful
to these countries, when they return to them. I
will place them in my colleges ; they will learn
there all that is useful and ornamental. Be not
uneasy about their welfare, they shall be my adopted
children ; and, when they are sufficiently instructed in
the sciences, I will send them back to be happiness
to you, and to these countries, and a glory to you."
The sheikhs very willingly accepted the offer : —
every one wished to send his children into Egypt ;
the most powerful among them, named Abd-el-Ka-
dir, having no son, asked the favour for his nephew.
His Highness then urgently recommended Ahmed
Pasha to labour for the welfare and civilization of
these people; and, for the purpose of encouragement,
announced, that he should himself return next year,
in order to judge the progress that might be made,
and incite them to fresh exertions.
The Viceroy departed the next morning, and re-
turned to Fazoglo on the 1st of February, when he
renewed his exhortations to the sheikhs of that dis
trict ; and proceeded to Kartoum, where he was de-
lighted to find the good effects of his late visit, in
some land being already in full cultivation. From
thence he visited, in like manner, the White Nile,
THE PASHA OF EGYPT. 433
and, on returning to Kartoum, he set on foot the
building of a Christian church. Before leaving the
place, he proclaimed the freedom of trade in indigo,
which the provinces of Dongola and Berber produce
in considerable quantities, and ordered the governor
to supply implements, and everything necessary, for
the development of its cultivation. After which, he
embarked with his suite, leaving M. Lambert, with
the charge of making two reports, — the one, upon a
projected railroad, in that part of the desert which
separates Abu-Muhammed from Kurusku ; the other,
on the formation of a canal between the White
River and Kordofan, destined to furnish water wi-
the irrigation of the land, and to facilitate the carriage
of the iron-ore of the mines.
The cataracts were repassed on his return ; and,
on the 14th of March, the cannon of the citadel of
Cairo announced to Egypt the arrival of the Viceroy,
after an absence of five months and four days,
Having freely, in another place, commented upon
the conduct of the Pasha, in permitting the con-
tinuance of the gazzua, and in allowing his offi-
cers to reimburse themselves, for any arrears of their
pay, with the human booty which they might seize,
we are bound to do justice to the course which he
has now pursued, and to acknowledge that the zeal
and energy which he has displayed, in acting upon
his new opinions, furnish an example, which any
civilized and Christian nation may do itself honour by
following. It must be confessed, there were great
434 THE REMEDY.
impediments in his way : it was not likely that he, a
follower of Mahomet, whose religion justifies the en-
slavement of the infidel, should have shared our ab-
horrence of all that pertains to the trade in man : he
must have had to surmount many strong and deep-
seated prejudices in his own bosom, and must have
exposed himself to public reproach, if not danger,
before he resolved to set his face against a system so
long established, and so lucrative. It was an act
of great vigour in a prince, seventy years of age,
threatened by a formidable enemy, and holding his
authority in some considerable measure, by his own
personal presence and influence, to undertake a jour-
ney, of more than five months' duration, through a
country so rarely visited, exposing himself to consi-
derable perils and fatigue, and the expense of con-
veying with him a large body of well-qualified
assistants. It is greatly to the credit of his under-
standing to have seen so distinctly that a greater
amount of wealth may be drawn from the cultivation
of the soil, than from the chase and capture of the
inhabitants. The language which he uses to the
native chiefs proves that he well comprehends the
principles by which a degree of civilization may be
spread among savage tribes, and valuable products
reared from their rich but untilled lands. But the
point which deserves most notice is, that, from the
moment he was convinced, he acted, at once and
boldly. In a very short period, he has executed a
voyage of discovery ; he has selected an excellent posi-
THE PASHA OF EGYPT. 435
tion for a town, and commenced building it. He has
entered upon a system of hiring labour and paying
wages (in itself, I am afraid, an innovation) ; he has
laboured to convince the native chiefs that it is better
to sell their productions than their subjects : he
has made some provision for the education of their
children ; he has relinquished taxes, and established
free trade in articles which have hitherto been sub-
ject to a monopoly ; he has given orders for the form-
ation of a canal and a railroad ; and he is employed in
opening through the cataracts a way sufficiently wide
for the passage of boats of large dimensions : more-
over, and it confirms one of my most important anti-
cipations, he has found better cotton in Soudan than
that which is grown by himself in Egypt : in short, if
I may judge by his actions, as represented in the nar-
rative which is put forth under his authority, there is
no more thorough-going advocate of the policy which
I am labouring to recommend to the British nation
than the personage whom, but a few months ago, I
had to point out to public indignation as the patron
of the horrible gazzua. It must, however, be borne
in memory that we have only seen the beginning of
a new system. The character of the Pasha will be
judged, not by what he has hitherto attempted, but by
the fidelity with which he shall adhere to the prin-
ciples he has professed, and by the sagacity with which
he shall carry into execution the wise and benevolent
design which seems to reflect so much credit upon him.
I have thus shown that many persons, whose
436 THE REMEDY.
veracity we have no reason to doubt, whose expe-
rience furnishes the best means of forming a correct
judgment, and who cannot be suspected of acting in
concert, arrive at precisely the same conclusions. The
argument deducible from this coincidence of opinion
enforced itself on me with peculiar effect. I pos-
sessed neither the practical experience which belongs
to a traveller, a trader, or the governor of a colony,
nor the intimate acquaintance with native mind ac-
quired by the missionary ; nor that deep knowledge
of all that has been written concerning Africa, in
which Mr. Clarkson and Mr. M'Queen excel. Yet in
ignorance of almost all the opinions to which I have
now referred, I had, by a process, and from docu-
ments, quite distinct, arrived at the same result. I
attentively examined the papers on the Slave Trade,
annually presented to Parliament : they demonstrated
the unwavering sincerity of the Government, by
whatever party administered, and the generous com-
passion of the nation : at the same time, they forced
upon me an undoubting conviction, that the evil
could never be eradicated by this mode of correction.
Ready to abandon all further effort, in despair of
being able to effect any practical good, and from an
abhorrence of the task of afflicting myself and others
by a recital of evils, which I could not cure, and of
horrors, which every effort seemed to aggravate, I cast
my eyes, in every direction, in order to discover if there
yet existed any effectual remedy. It then occurred to
me, that Africa, after all, obtains a very inconsider-
COINCIDENCE OF OPINIONS. 437
able revenue from the Slave Trade ; while the
outlay, so to speak, — the desolation, the slaughter,
the bloody and diabolical superstition, and the human
suffering from all these, — are indeed prodigious : the
net profit to Africa (whatever it may be to the
civilized ruffians who instigate the trade) is mise
rably scanty. " Thou sellest thy people for nought ;
and dost not increase thy wealth by their price."
There was something hopeful in the fact that the
interests of Africa were not involved in the con-
tinuance of the Slave Trade. It gave birth to the
inquiry, Is it not possible for us to undersell the
slave-dealer, and to drive him out of the market, by
offering more for the productions of the soil than he
ever gave for the bodies of the inhabitants ?
This opened a new field of investigation. I
eagerly turned to every book of travels which might
furnish an insight into the capabilities of that quarter
of the globe. There was anything but a dearth of
materials : I found evidence, sufficient to fill volumes,
that Africa, though now a wilderness, may rank with
any portion of the world in natural resources and in
the power of production. Travellers, whatever may
be the scarcity of other topics, never fail to speak of
the exuberance of the soil on the one hand, and the
misery of its inhabitants on the other. These two
subjects occupy three-fourths of the pages of those
who have visited Africa. It is sufficient here to say
that I rose from that part of the investigation, in
possession of incontrovertible proof that nature had
438 THE REMEDY.
provided an abundance of all things which consti-
tute agricultural wealth. The question then arises,
Are there hands to till the earth ? Africa, notwith-
standing the annual and terrible drain of its inhabit-
ants, teems with population : but for the Slave Trade,
there is no reason to doubt that it would be as
densely peopled as any part of the globe. Can
labour be obtained there as cheaply as in Brazil,
Cuba, or the Carolinas ? We have some light on
this subject. We know that a slave fetches, in
Interior Africa, about 3/. ; in Brazil, at least 70/. ;
when seasoned, as an African is in his own country,
100/. Africa, then, has this great advantage over Ame-
rica, that it can be cultivated at one-twentieth of the
expense. Why, then, should the inhabitants be torn
from Africa, when her native labourers upon her
native land might hold successful competition with
any Slave State ? The soil being equal, a labourer
in Africa will raise as much produce as the same
labourer transported to America, but at less ex-
pense ; for you can hire ten labourers in the former
at the price that one costs in the latter. Hence I
infer, that the labour and produce of Africa, if fairly
called forth, would rival the labour employed, and
the produce raised in America, throughout the
markets of the civilized world.
Besides all this, the labourers stolen in Africa are
not, in fact, carried to America. What the one
loses, the other does not gain. Africa loses three
labourers; America obtains but one: in no species
VALUE AND SUPPLY OF LABOUR. 439
of merchandise is there such waste of the raw ma-
terial, as in the merchandise of man. In what other
trade do two-thirds of the goods perish, in order that
one-third may reach the market ?
Apart, then, from all considerations of humanity
and Christian principle, and narrowing the question
to a mere calculation of pecuniary profit, it would
appear a strange kind of economy to carry away
the population from their native fields, which need
nothing but those hands for their cultivation, in order
to plant them in diminished numbers, at a prodigious
expense, in another hemisphere, and on land not
more productive.
But would these men be willing to work for
wages 1 I did not require to be taught that men will
work, not only as well but ten times better, for reward,
than they were ever made to do by the lash : proof,
however, of this truth presented itself. As I shall
have to enlarge upon that subject before I close this
book, I will only say here, that of all the fictions
ever invented by interested parties to quiet their
own consciences, or delude the world, there is none
so gross as the doctrine, that less labour is to be won
by wages, than can be extorted by the whip.
Thus, then, the study of the writings of travellers
proved to me that Africa possessed all the separate
elements necessary for vast production and extensive
commerce ; but these materials, were, if I may so ex-
press myself, asunder : the hands, both able and will-
ing to labour, had never been brought to bear upon
440 THE REMEDY.
the land, so capable of yielding a grateful return.
It was not till after I had come to the conclusion
that all that was wanting for the deliverance of
Africa was that agriculture, commerce, and instruc-
tion should have a fair trial, that I discovered that
those views were not confined to myself, and that
others had arrived, by practical experience, at the
same result which I had learnt from the facts, and
from reasoning upon them ; and I was very well
pleased to renounce any little credit which might
attach to the discovery, in exchange for the solid
encouragement and satisfaction of finding that what
was with me but theory, was with them the fruit
of experience. I cannot but remember that a poet,
who possessed the faculty of combining the closest
reasoning with the most flowing verse, saw, and
availed himself of this species of argument for the
defence of Christianity : —
" Whence, but from Heaven, could men unskill'd in arts,
In several ages born, of several parts,
Weave such agreeing truths ; or how, or why,
Should all conspire to cheat us with a lie?"
441
CHAPTER V.
PRINCIPLES.
" True faith, true policy, united run." — Pope."
" If you plant where savages he, do not only entertain them with trifles
and gingles, but use them justly and graciously, with sufficient guard never-
theless." — Lord Bacon.
" The greatest advantage a Government can possess is to be the one trust-
worthy Government in the midst of Governments which nobody can trust.''
— Edinburgh Review, Jan. 1840. r~Life of Clive, p. 330.
It appears to me a matter of such peculiar moment
that we should distinctly settle and declare the Prin-
ciples on which our whole intercourse with Africa,
whether economic or benevolent, whether directed
exclusively to her benefit, or mingled (as I think it
may most fairly be) with a view to our own, shall be
founded, and by which it shall be regulated, that I
venture, though at the risk of being tedious, to devote
a separate chapter to the consideration of them. The
principles, then, which I trust to see adopted by our
country, are these, — -
Free Trade.
Free Labour.
free trade.
Nothing, I apprehend, could be more unfortunate
to the continent we wish to befriend, or more dis-
442 THE REMEDY.
creditable to ourselves, than that Great Britain should
give any colour to the suspicion of being actuated by
mercenary motives ; an apology would thus be af-
forded to every other nation for any attempt it might
make to thwart our purpose. We know, from the
Duke of Wellington's despatches, that the powers on
the continent were absolutely incredulous as to the
purity of the motives which prompted us, at the con-
gress of Aix la Chapelle, to urge, beyond everything
else, the extinction of the Slave Trade.
In a letter to Mr. Wilberforce, dated Paris, 15th
Sept., 1814, the Duke of Wellington says, " It is
not believed that we are in earnest about it, or have
abolished the trade on the score of its inhumanity. It
is thought to have been a commercial speculation ;
and that, having abolished the trade ourselves, with a
view to prevent the undue increase of colonial pro-
duce in our stores, of which we could not dispose,
we now want to prevent other nations from cultivat-
ing their colonies to the utmost of their power."
And again, in another letter to the Right Honour-
able J. C. Villiers : —
Paris, 31st August, 1814.
" The efforts of Great Britain to put an end to it
(the Slave Trade) are not attributed to good mo-
tives, but to commercial jealousy, and a desire to keep
the monopoly of colonial produce in our own hands."
The grant of twenty millions may have done some-
thing to quench these narrow jealousies, but still, the
nations of the continent will be slow to believe that
FREE TRADE. 443
we are entirely disinterested. It should, then, be
made manifest to the world, by some signal act,
that the moving spring is humanity ; that if England
makes settlements on the African coast, it is only for
the more effectual attainment of her great object ;
and that she is not allured by the hopes either of
gain or conquest, or by the advantages, national or
individual, political or commercial, which may, and I
doubt not, will follow the undertaking. Such a de-
monstration would be given, if, with the declaration,
that it is resolved to abolish the Slave Trade, and,
that in this cause we are ready, if requisite, to exert
all our powers, Great Britain, should couple an of-
ficial pledge that she will not claim for herself a
single benefit, which shall not be shared by every
nation uniting with her in the extinction of the Slave
Trade ; and especially
First, — That no exclusive privilege in favour of
British subjects shall ever be allowed to exist.
Secondly, — That no custom-house shall ever be
established at Fernando Po.
Thirdly, — That no distinction shall be made there,
whether in peace or in war, between our own sub-
jects and those of any such foreign power, as to the
rights they shall possess, or the terms on which
they shall enjoy them. In short, that we purchase
Fernando Po, and will hold it for no other purpose
than the benefit of Africa. I am well aware that
these may appear startling propositions ; I am, how-
2g
444 THE REMEDY.
ever, supported in them by high authorities : the sug-
gestion as to the custom-house was made to me by
Mr. Porter, of the Board of Trade ; and that respect-
ing neutrality in peace or in war, originated with the
learned Judge of the British Vice-Admiralty Courts.
Supported by his authority, I may venture to say
that, though a novel, it would be a noble characteristic
of our colony. As it is intended for different ends, so
it would be ruled by different principles, from any
colony which has ever been undertaken : it would
have the distinction of being the neutral ground of the
world, elevated above the mutual injuries of war ;
where, for the prosecution of a good and a vast object,
the subjects and the fleets of all nations may meet
in amity, and where there shall reign a perpetual
truce.
Let us look to the tendency of the proposition,
that no custom-house shall be established at Fernando
Po, or at the post to be formed at the junction of the
Niger and the Tchadda : we might then hope that
the history of these stations would be a counterpart
to that of Singapore, which is described as having
been, in 1819, " an insignificant fishing -village, and
a haunt of pirates/' but now stands as an eloquent
eulogy on the views of its founder, Sir Stamford
Ruffles, proving what may be effected, and in how
short a time, for our own profit and for the improve-
ment of the uncivilized world, "by the union of native
industry and British enterprise," when uncurbed by
restrictions on trade.
FREE LABOUR. 445
FREE LABOUR.
I now turn to the second great principle, viz., —
Free Labour,
It may be thought by some almost superfluous that
this should be urged, considering that there is an
Act of Parliament, which declares that " Slavery
shall be, and is hereby utterly and for ever abolished
in all the colonies, possessions, and plantations of
Great Britain." But if ever there were a case in
which this great law should be strictly and stre-
nuously enforced, and in which it is at the same time
peculiarly liable to be neglected or evaded, it is in
the Case of any possessions we may obtain in Africa.
It is necessary to be wise in time, and never to suffer
this baneful weed to take root there. Let us re-
member what it has cost us to extirpate it from our
old colonies. It is remarkable that among the whole
phalanx of antagonists to the abolition of West India
Slavery, there was never one who was not, by his
own account, an ardent lover of freedom. Slavery,
in the abstract, was universally acknowledged to be
detestable ; and they were in the habit of pathetically
deploring their cruel fate, and of upbraiding the
mother-country, which had originally planted this
curse among them ; but property had entwined it-
self around the disastrous institution, and we had to
contend with a fearful array of securities, marriage
settlements, and vested interests of all kinds. Again,
bondage, it was said, had seared the intellect, and
2g2
446 THE REMEDY.
withered all that was noble in the bosoms of its vic-
tims. To have begun such an unrighteous system
was an error, only less than that of suddenly eradicat-
ing it, and of clothing with the attributes of freemen,
those whose very nature had been changed and defiled
by servitude.
I firmly believe that much of all this was uttered
in perfect sincerity ; and yet, I feel the most serious
apprehensions lest these wholesome convictions should
evaporate before the temptations of a country, where
land of the richest fertility is to be had for Id. per
acre, and labourers are to be purchased for 4/. per head.
We know, not only that the Portuguese are turning
their attention to plantations in the neighbourhood of
Loango, but that they have been bold enough to ask
us to guarantee to them their property, that is their
slaves, in these parts. This, together with certain
ominous expressions which I have heard, convinces
me that my apprehensions are not altogether chime-
rical ; and I am not sure that we shall not once more
hear the antique argument, that Negroes, " from the
brutishness of their nature," are incapable of being-
induced to work by any stimulus but the lash : at all
events, we shall be assured, that if we attempt to es-
tablish Free Labour, we shall assail the prejudices of
the African chiefs in the tenderest points. If we do
not take care, at the outset, to render the holding of
slaves by British subjects in Africa highly penal, and
perilous in the last degree, we shall see British capital
again embarked, and vested interest acquired in hu-
FREE LABOUR. 447
man flesh. We shall, in spite of the warning we
have had, commit a second time, the monstrous error,
to say nothing of the crime, of tolerating slavery.
A second time the slave-master will accuse us of
being at least accomplices in his guilt ; and once
more we shall have to buy off opposition by an ex-
travagant grant of money.
The suggestion, then, that I make is that we shall
lay it down, as a primary and sacred principle, that
any man who enters any territory that we may
acquire in Africa, is from that moment " Free, and
discharged of all manner of slavery," and that Great
Britain pledges herself to defend him from all,
civilized or savage, who may attempt to recapture
him. That one resolution will do much to give us
labourers, — to obtain for us the affections of the po-
pulation, — to induce them to imitate and adopt our
customs, — and to settle down to the pursuits of peace-
ful industry and productive agriculture.
No more daring attempt was ever made to form a
settlement in Africa than that undertaken by Captain
Beaver, near the close of the last century. His object
was to establish a colony on the island of Bulama.
Notwithstanding the errors into which he fell, and
which proved fatal to his expedition, yet was it
highly creditable to him, that at a time when the
abolition of the Slave Trade had made but little way
in the public mind, and when the extinction of slavery
was not thought of, he should have perceived, and
applied principles so wise and so humane as those we
448 THE REMEDY.
find scattered in his interesting volume. His Narra-
tive proves two points, — first, that the natives of
Africa may be led to prefer legitimate commerce
to slave-dealing. Secondly, that they were very
willing; to labour for wages.
The chief dissimilarity which first struck the Afri-
cans, in the conduct of this and that of other European
settlements, was their refusal to purchase slaves.
" This they could not account for ; neither were
they altogether pleased with it at first ; for, when
negotiating with Niobana for the purchase of the
Biafara territory, he said, that ' It was very hard that
we would not buy his slaves !' Having made him
comprehend that our intention was rather to cultivate
the earth than to trade ; but that we should, notwith-
standing, at all times, trade with him for wax, ivory,
clothes, &c, — in short, that Ave would buy every thing
which he had to sell, except only slaves, whom he
could always dispose of as he had been accustomed to
do heretofore — he appeared satisfied ; although he
could not comprehend why we would not purchase
the one, nor why we cultivated the other."
By their steadiness in this point, they got the
character of being the first white men the natives had
ever heard of " who could not do bad." And " from
no circumstance," says Captain Beaver, " did we
derive so much benefit, as from our not dealing in
slayes,"
The natives not long after found out that these
new colonists not only refused to purchase slaves,
FREE LABOUR. 449
but that no man in their settlement was permitted to
be considered in the light of a slave. The two first
who came to Captain Beaver were full of suspicion ;
they remained with him a little more than three
weeks., and then signified their desire to depart at
the time when their help was most needed. Captain
Beaver wisely did not even ask them to remain, but
paid them their wages, and dismissed them with pre-
sents. Their report induced others to take service,
and he never after wanted grumetas : in one year, he
employed nearly two hundred of them. The Afri-
cans of these parts always, he says, go armed, and
never voluntarily place themselves in the power of
even a friendly tribe ; but when they had once ascer-
tained that these English colonists neither bought
nor sold slaves ; that every man was paid for the full
value of his labour, and suffered to depart whenever
he chose, " They came to me unarmed," says Cap-
tain Beaver, " and remained for weeks and months
at a time on the island, without the least suspicion of
my ever intending them evil." And this, though he
was occasionally obliged to inflict punishment on
individuals of their number for disorderly conduct.
" Thus," he says, " by the negative merit of treating
these people with common integrity, was I not only
able to acquire their confidence, and, by their labour,
to do almost all that was done upon the island, but
also to overturn one of their strongest prejudices
against us, and to convert their well-grounded
suspicion of fraud and deceit in all Europeans, into
450 THE REMEDY.
esteem and respect for the character of a white
man."
I cannot dismiss the work of Captain Beaver, with-
out expressing my satisfaction in finding, that he, like
others whom I have named, gathers from his expe-
rience on the coast of Africa that the Slave Trade is
to be overthrown by fair dealing, and by the wealth
which is to be raised from the soil. " One great
motive of the Africans in making slaves, indeed I
may say the only one, is to procure European goods ;
slaves are the money, the circulating medium, with
which African commerce is carried on : they have no
other. If, therefore, we could substitute another,
and at the same time that other be more certain and
more abundant, the great object in trading in slaves
will be done away. This may be done by the
produce of the earth. "Let the native chiefs be once
convinced that the labour of a free native in culti-
vating the earth may produce him more European
goods in one year than he could have purchased if
he had sold him for a slave, and he will no longer
seek to make slaves to procure European commo-
dities, but will cultivate the earth for that pur-
pose." And this is the testimony which he bears
to African industry, and to the facility of procuring
labour: —
" I know that those who choose always to see the
African character in its worst light will probably say
lliiit they never will be induced voluntarily to labour ;
and that I betray a total ignorance of it, in supposing
FREE LABOUR. 451
that they can ever be brought to cultivate the earth
for wages. That assertion may be made ; but my
answer is, ' Put it to the test.' And I moreover say
that, as far as my little knowledge of the Africans will
enable me to judge, I have no doubt of their readily
cultivating the earth for hire, whenever Europeans
will take the trouble so to employ them. I never
saw men work harder, more willingly, or regularly,
generally speaking, than those free natives whom I
employed upon the island of Bulama. What induced
them to do so ? Their desire of European commo-
dities in my possession, of which they knew that they
would have the value of one bar at the end of a week,
or four at the end of a month. Some of them
remained at labour for months ere they left me ;
others, after having left me, returned : they knew
that the labour was constant, but they also knew that
their reward was certain. I think, therefore, that
as far as my experience goes, I am warranted in
saying that the Africans are not averse to labour,
unless those in the neighbourhood of Bulama are
unlike the rest of their species. So much as to the
question of labour. " #
If I have quoted at unusual length from Captain
Beaver's work, it is because here is testimony upon
which no shade of suspicion can rest. This work
was published before a word had been uttered upon
the controversy, as to free and slave labour ; and it
comes from a gentleman who took nothing upon the
* Beaver's African Memoranda, p. 385.
452 THE REMEDY,
authority of others, but formed his opinions from his
own personal experience in Africa.
I shall subjoin in the Appendix further proof, on
the authority of General Turner, Colonel Denham,
and Major Ricketts, who also spoke from what they
saw at Sierra Leone, as to the disposition of Africans
to work for wages.*
The Rev. W. Fox, missionary at McCarthy's Island,
whom I have already quoted, says, " The East-
ern Negroes, .... come here and hire themselves as
labourers for several months, and, with the articles
they receive in payment, barter them again on their
way home for more than their actual value on
this island." In the journal of the same gentleman,
just received, under date of April, 1838, he writes
thus : " I have to-day paid off all the labourers who
had been employed on the mission-ground, and have
hired about eighty more, with three overseers ; many
others applied for work, and I should have felt a
pleasure in engaging them, but that I wished to keep
the expenses within moderate bounds."
It thus appears that free labour is to be obtained
in Africa, even under present circumstances, if we
will but pay the price for it, and that there is no neces-
sity at all for that system of coerced labour, which
no necessity could justify. I am aware that I have
trespassed on the patience of many of my readers,
who require no arguments against slavery ; but I have;
already expressed, and continue to feel, if there be
* Vide Appendix C.
BRITISH DOMINION. 453
danger anywhere in the plan for the cultivation of
Africa, it lies in this point. And I wish the ques-
tion of slavery to be definitively settled, and our prin-
ciples to be resolved on, in such a way as shall render
it impossible for us to retract them, before a single
step is taken, or a shilling of property invested in the
attempt to grow sugar and cotton in Africa.
I shall here introduce the consideration of two
other points, which though they cannot precisely be
classed as principles, yet are nearly akin to them, and
deserve our very serious attention.
The proposal of a settlement in Africa, necessarily
recalls to mind our vast empire in India ; and, surely,
no sober-minded statesman would desire to see re-
newed, in another quarter of the globe, the career
we have run in the East.
I entirely disclaim any disposition to erect a new
empire in Africa. Remembering what has now been
disclosed, of the affliction of that quarter of the globe,
and of the horrors and abominations which every spot
exhibits, and every hour produces, it would be the
extreme of selfish cruelty to let a question so moment-
ous be decided with an eye to our own petty interests ;
but there is another view of the case, — it would also
be the most extreme folly to allow ourselves to swerve
one iota from its right decision, by any such indirect
and short-sighted considerations.
What is the value to Great Britain of the sove-
reignty of a few hundred square miles in Benin, or
Eboe, as compared with that of bringing forward
454 THE REMEDY.
into the market of the world millions of customers,
who may be taught to grow the raw material which
we require, and who require the manufactured
commodities which we produce ? The one is a
trivial and insignificant matter ; the other is a sub-
ject worthy the most anxious solicitude of the most
accomplished statesmen.
It appears to me, however, that the danger of our
indulging any thirst for dominion is rather plausible
than real. In the first place, the climate there for-
bids the employment of European armies, if armies
indeed formed any part of my plan, which they do
not. I look forward to the employment, almost
exclusively, of the African race. A few Europeans
may be required in some leading departments ; but
the great body of our agents must have African
blood in their veins, and of course to the entire exclu-
sion of our troops.
2dly. In Asia, there was accumulated treasure to
tempt our cupidity : in Africa, there is none. Asia
was left to the government of a company : the Afri-
can establishments will, of course, be regularly sub-
jected to parliamentary supervision. Our encroach-
ments upon Asia were made at a time, when little
general attention was bestowed, or sympathy felt, for
the sufferings and wrongs of a remote people. Now,
attention is awake on such topics. India stands as a
beacon to warn us against extended dominion ; and
if there were not, as I believe there are, better prin-
ciples among our statesmen, there would be a check
ENCOURAGEMENT OF AFRICAN PRODUCE. 455
to rapacity, and a shield for the weak, in the wakeful
commiseration of the public.
I may add, that, were the danger as great as some
imagine, it would have disclosed itself ere this. The
French have had for some time a settlement on the
Senegal; the Danes on the Rio Volta; the Dutch on
the Gold Coast ; the Portuguese at Loango ; the Ame-
ricans at Cape Mesurado, and the English at Sierra
Leone, in the Gambia, and on the Gold Coast ; and I
know not that there has been upon the part of any of
these a desire manifested to raise an empire in Central
Africa. Certainly, there has been none on the part
of the British : on the contrary, I think there is some
reason to complain that our government has been too
slow, at least for the welfare of Africa, in accepting
territory which has been voluntarily offered to us, and
in confirming the treaties which have been made by
our officers. We have been in possession of Sierra
Leone not very far short of half a century ; and I am
not aAvare that it can be alleged that any injury has
been thereby inflicted upon the natives.
Lastly. There is this consideration, and to me it
seems conclusive : — Granting that the danger to
African liberty is as imminent as I consider it to be
slight, still the state of the country is such, that,
change as it may, it cannot change for the worse.
The other point to which I would call attention is,
the encouragement which may be afforded to the infant
cultivation of Africa, by promoting the admission and
use of its productions. I shall not advert to the
456 THE REMEDY.
assistance which we may fairly expect from the Le-
gislature in this respect, when the subject is brought
under its consideration in all its important bearings ;
with the example of France and the United States
before them, I cannot doubt that Government will
introduce such measures as a liberal and enlightened
policy will dictate. But individuals have it in their
power to contribute largely to the encouragement of
African produce, by a preference that will cost them
little. Let them recollect that for centuries we were
mainly instrumental in checking cultivation in Africa :
we ransacked the whole continent in order to procure
labourers for the West Indies. Is it, then, too much
to ask, now when we are endeavouring to raise her
from the gulf of wretchedness into which we have
contributed to plunge her, that while she is struggling
with enormous difficulties, we should force her in-
dustry and excite her to unfold her capabilities by
anxiously encouraging the consumption of her pro-
duce ?
457
CHAPTER VI.
ELEVATION OF NATIVE MIND.
" Wisdom is a defence, and money is a defence ; but the excellency of know-
ledge is, that Wisdom giveth Life to them that have it." — Ecclesiastes, vii. \2»
" That peace and happiness, truth and justice, religion and piety, may be
established among them for all generations." — Liturgy.
I now come to the point which I deliberately con-
sider to be beyond all others momentous in the ques-
tion before us. I lay great stress upon African com-
merce, more upon the cultivation of soil, but most
of all upon the elevation of the native mind.
This is a wide subject; it embraces the considera-
tion of some difficult questions. They resolve them-
selves into these : 1st. Are the Africans able and
willing to learn? 2d. TVhat ) and how shall we teach
them ?
It is true that the inhabitants of Africa are in the
very depths of ignorance and superstition ; but, still,
there are amongst them redeeming symptoms, how-
ever slight, sufficient to prove that the fault is not in
their nature, but in their condition ; and to teach us,
that when we shall have put down that prodigious evil
which forbids all hope of their improvement, it is abun-
dantly possible that the millions of Africa may assume
458 THE REMEDY.
their place among civilized and Christian nations ; and
that a region, whose rank luxuriance now poisons the
atmosphere, may he brought under subjection to the
plough, may yield a wealthy harvest to its occupants,
and open a new world, as exciting to our skill, capital,
and enterprise, as was America on its first discovery.
In these views it is a satisfaction to me that I can
lean upon an authority so stable as that of Mr. Pitt.
Mr. Wilberiorce, writing to Mr. Stephen in 1817,
says : "Reflection renders me more and more confi-
dent that we shall, or, at least, that they who live a
few years will, see the beginnings of great reforms
in the West Indies, as well as opening prospects of
civilization in Africa. In the latter instance I must
say, even to you, that Pitt's death has been an irre-
parable loss to us. He had truly grand views on the
topic of our moral and humane debt to Africa." *
And there is a speech on record, of which Mr.
Sheridan said at the time, " If Mr. Pitt were always
thus to speak, the opposition could not survive a fort-
night ;" and of which Mr. Fox said 1 5 years afterwards,
that it was "the most powerful eloquence that ever
adorned those walls ; a speech not of vague and showy
ornament, but of solid and irresistible argument;" in
that speech Mr. Pitt said, " Some of us may live to
see a reverse of that picture, from which we now
turn our eyes with shame and regret ; we may live to
behold the natives of Africa engaged in the calm
occupations of industry, and in the pursuit of a just
and legitimate commerce ; we may behold the beams
* Wilbcr force's Life, vol. iv. p. 306.
OPINION OF MR. PITT. 459
of science and philosophy breaking in upon their land,
which, at some happier period, in still later times, may
blaze with full lustre, and, joining their influence to
that of pure religion, may illuminate and invigorate
the most distant extremities of that immense con-
tinent."
In the first part of this work I have given a descrip-
tion of the deadly superstition which prevails in Africa,
and of the effect it produces. The reader is requested
to carry a sense of this most miserable state of things
along with him, while we are considering what can be
done towards the moral, intellectual, and religious im-
provement of the people.
Preliminary to this, I beg to call attention to cer-
tain indications, — faint, no doubt, — but, considering
the difficulties and impediments to improvement in
Africa, encouraging indications, — of a capability for
better things ;
And also, to show that there are facilities for giving
instruction to the inhabitants, which hold out the
hope that our labours, if we shall be induced to make
them, will not be in vain.
Hence an argument for a mighty effort towards the
moral and intellectual improvement of Africa, may
be successfully derived.
Before I proceed to these indications of capability,
I must premise that a just judgment cannot be formed
of the Africans without reference to the circumstances
in which they are placed. Things which would be no
proof at all of intelligence in an European, who had
2 H
460 THE REMEDY.
been taught the truths of religion, and been under
the influence of a certain measure of refinement and
civilization, denote positive intellect in an African
savage from his birth, imbibing the grossest super-
stition, and bereaved of motives to action by his inse-
curity.
JVhat Allowance then should be made in favour of
the Negro ?
When we find that at this period of the world there
are nations not very remote from the centre of civili-
zation, who have as yet learned the use of no agricul-
tural implement but the hoe, and who, eager for
wealth, have not energy enough to till their land, or
work their mines, or in any way to avail themselves of
the prodigal bounty of nature, we are apt to rush to
the obvious but fallacious conclusion, that they are
not men in the ordinary sense of the term, but beings
of a stunted intellect, and of a degraded order.
This false conception has been the cause of infinite
suffering to the negro race. During the whole con-
troversy on the subject of slavery, it was the great
defence and apology of the planters; it constituted
their whole case. They triumphantly pointed at the
idleness of the negro, and extracted from it a justifi-
cation of the necessary severity with which he was
treated. The error has not as yet been dissipated ;
many benevolent persons, judging of the African
under his present aspect, despair of his improvement.
ALLOWANCES TO BE MADE FOR THE NEGRO. 461
It will serve better than a thousand arguments to
dispel this idea of inferiority in the African, and to
induce us to make large allowances for him, notwith-
standing his existing debasement, if I produce before
my readers individuals of European extraction, of a
race which amongst Europeans is supposed to stand
in the highest rank for energy and intelligence, who
have been, in the space of a few months, corrupted
and debased by oppression. When Englishmen are
masters, and Africans their slaves, we charge them
with sloth, deception, thievishness ; and we rate them
as another and an inferior order in the family of man.
I am going to reverse the picture, and to show that
when Africans are masters and Englishmen their
slaves, they reckon us a poor, pitiful, degraded race
of mortals ; inveterate thieves, and proverbial liars ;
too lazy to work, too stupid to learn, too base to be
credited ; hardly sensible of the obligation of an
oath ; and fit only to be hewers of wood and drawers
of water to the true believers, to whom God, in an-
swer to their prayers, has been pleased to send
them.
" It may from many a blunder free us,
To see ourselves as others see us."
Such, as I shall' show, is the reproach in each
case; and in each case I doubt not that it is just.
Let Slavery be imposed on man of whatever race, that
man is found a poor, tame, degenerate creature. The
black, being a slave, thieves ; so does the white. He
lies; so does the white. The black will not do a
2h2
462 THE REMEDY.
stroke of work, except under the terror of the lash ;
just so the white. The fact, in both cases, is true ;
and the fallacy lies, not in an erroneous opinion of
the demerits of the slave, but in this — that each
forms his estimate on a being corrupted by oppres-
sion. He forgets that it is natural that the man
reared in slavery should be tainted with slavish vices ;
that, denied access to knowledge, it is natural he
should be ignorant ; that, wanting a motive, he neces-
sarily wants perseverance.
Before we can pronounce a man, or a race of men,
desperately wicked, and incorrigibly idle, they must
have their fair chances as men — we must give them
a motive for their exertions. We must associate
with the fatigues we call for, a sense of personal
advantage to spring from them; we must awaken
whatever there may be of native vigour sleeping in
their bosoms, and we must release them from the
trammels which incumber their progress, if we desire
to see them advance with rapidity.
One corroboration of this doctrine is to be found
in the history of Adams, who was wrecked upon the
coast of Africa, made a slave to the inhabitants, and
was carried to Timbuctoo. Adams was a British
sailor, and our consul at Mogadore thus describes
him at the termination of his captivity : — " Like
most other Christians, after a long captivity and
severe treatment among the Arabs, he appeared, at
his first arrival, exceedingly stupid and insensible."*
* Adams's Residence at Timbuctoo. Iutroil. p. 24.
CAPTAIN PADDOCK. 463
But a still more forcible illustration of the truth of
this theory is to be found in the very interesting nar-
rative of the loss of the Oswego, on the coast of Africa,
and the enslavement of Captain Paddock and his
crew. He was a man on whose statement every
reliance could be placed. De Witt Clinton, governor
of New York, thus writes to him, October 1817, —
" I have been urged by several respectable gentle-
men, who, together with myself, repose the utmost
confidence in your candour and veracity, and who
have been a long time acquainted with the respect-
ability of your standing in society, to solicit from you
a statement of your sufferings and adventures." In
compliance with this application, the narrative was
published.
Captain Paddock was a Quaker, high in repute
with the Society of Friends, by whom no man will
be respected who is not strictly veracious. He him-
self gives proof of the effect which slavery had upon
his own morals. He furnishes an elaborate descrip-
tion of his various modes of robbing and deceiving
his master. He steals his corn, his tobacco, his fruit,
his boat. He makes no scruple of telling falsehoods
out of number to his master, and of purloining every-
thing he could lay his hands on.
Of this, the following will serve as an illustration :
— " I was soon after called away to furnish tobacco
for a few who were smoking under the shade of the
walls. When they had done, my second mate, who
was as fond of tobacco as myself, suggested a query
as to the propriety of robbing the pouch of a little.
464 THE REMEDY.
We did so, and divided the spoil among such of our
company as were tobacco-chewers. Not long after,
some new company having come, I was again called
upon to bring the pouch ; and the fellow, on opening
it, charged me with stealing from it. Against that
charge I defended myself as well as I could. For
some time I was unwilling to make the hazardous
attempt again ; but at last, while the Arabs were all
lying asleep under the shade, I proposed to my second
mate that we two should go off together to some dis-
tance, where we might have an opportunity of taking
some out in such a manner as not to be suspected.
* # * # *
" We sat down in the finest piece of wheat I ever
saw, and commenced the business that we went upon,
taking particular notice of the turns of the string and
knot of the pouch, in which, when we had unrolled
it, we found two little sticks, laid in such a manner
as to detect me in my next attempt upon it, and
doubtless for that purpose. Having opened the
tobacco, we took out as much of it as we durst, and
replaced the little sticks as exactly as possible, when
we rolled it up again, putting round it the string just
as we found it, and hurried out of the field." *
The Africans having discovered that their captives
were exceedingly idle, resorted to exactly our own
methods of procuring (what was formerly so much
dwelt upon in this country) " steady labour in the
sun." They beat them, they starved them ; they
said to them, " If you will not work, neither shall
* Loss of the Oswego, p. 181.
CAPTAIN PADDOCK. 465
you eat;" and even threatened to shoot them for
their indolence. Captain Paddock says, " Early in
the morning of the 27th, the sickles that the Arabs
brought with them were made ready, and all of us
were ordered out to work." This he refused, for
which he received their curses and threats, but de-
termined not to heed them. " This controversy lasted
an hour, and they got my men into the field at last.
Some of them could handle a sickle as well as the
Arabs themselves ; and I told one of them (the man
that I was fearful would be of the most service to
our enslavers) to cut his own fingers, as if by acci-
dent. They all understood my meaning, and it was
not long after my men had been dragged into the
field before I found they were doing very well ;
I mean well for our own purposes. Some by acci-
dent, and some intentionally, perhaps, cut their
fingers and hands with their sickles, and made loud
complaints ; while others, who were gathering up
the grain for binding, did it in such a wasteful
manner, that their work was a real loss to the owner.
Upon this the Arabs took away the sickles from those
that had been reaping, and set them to haul the
grain up by the roots. They did so, but laid it in
the worst form that was possible. By managing
things in this way, they beat the Ishmaelites, and
got the victory."*
Their masters, finding that all their efforts to over-
come the indolence of their Christian slaves were
ineffectual, directed their vengeance against Pad-
* Loss of the Oswego, p. 157 to 159.
466 THE REMEDY.
dock, saying, " If Rias works, his men will, for he is
the head devil among them." I
It is curious to remark that the opinions the Afri-
cans entertained of us bore a strong resemblance to
the doctrine, now I trust obsolete, but not long ago
in full vogue amongst ourselves, of the inferiority of
the African race. All who took an interest in the
question of negro emancipation must remember the
deep prejudice which was felt by the white popula-
tion of the West Indies against any approach towards
social intercourse with those who had black blood in
their veins. I have heard of a clergyman who was
persecuted for admitting persons of colour to the
Sacrament at the same time with the whites ; of a
gentleman who was banished from society for the
crime of permitting his own coloured daughters to
ride with him in his carriage through the public
streets ; and upon the occasion of two gentlemen of
colour being admitted under the gallery of the House
of Commons when their own case was under discus-
sion, I heard a member of Parliament express in a
very animated speech his disgust at the insult thus
offered to the representatives of the people : " He had
hoped never to have seen the day when the laws of
decency and of nature might thus be trampled on."
We are not the only persons who have insisted on this
aristocracy of complexion. Paddock and others have
recorded that " swinish-looking dogs and white-
skinned devils were the appellations which were fami-
liarly applied to them by Africans. " " The Arabs
were well received here ; but we were more ridiculed
CAPTAIN PADDOCK. 467
than ever we had been, receiving an abundance of
the vile epithets so common to these people, who had
ever viewed us as a poor degraded set of beings,
scarcely fit to live in the world. The old man
(Aliomed) was seated opposite the gate at the time.
He spoke to me, and bade me sit down ; I sat down,
but, happening to sit near him, he ordered me away
to a greater distance, saying, he did not allow a Chris-
tian dog to be so near him ; I obeyed, and moved
off a little. The women were foremost in inso-
lence and abuse; but their children were not far
behind them."* " They frequently spoke of us, but
in such a manner as often to remind me of the old
adage, i Listeners seldom hear any good of them-
selves.' That saying was verified here completely.
The heads of their discourse concerning us were,'!'
* Loss of the Oswego, page 208.
t About the same estimate ' of negroes was at one time enter-
tained by British subjects. " An Act for the Security of the
Subject" was passed in Bermuda in 1730. A passage of it runs
thus : — " Whereas, they (negroes, Indians, mulattos) being, for
brutishness of their nature, no otherwise valued or esteemed
amongst us than as our goods and chattels, or other personal
estates ; be it therefore enacted, that if any person or persons
whatsoever, within these islands, being owner or possessor of any
negroes, Indians, mulattos, or other slaves, shall, in the deserved
correction or punishment of his, her, or their slave or slaves, for
crimes or offences by them committed or supposed to be committed,
accidentally happen to kill any such slave or slaves, the aforesaid
owner or possessor shall not be liable to any imprisonment, arraign-
ment, or subject to any penalty or forfeiture whatsoever ; but if
any person or persons whatsoever shall maliciously and wilfully
kill and destroy any slave or slaves, then the aforesaid person or
468 THE REMEDY.
that we were a poor, miserable, degraded race of
mortals, doomed to the everlasting punishment of
hell fire after death, and, in this life, fit only for the
company of dogs ; that our country was so wretch-
edly poor that we were always looking out abroad for
sustenance, and ourselves so base as to go to the coast
of Guinea for slaves to cultivate our land, being not
only too lazy to cultivate it ourselves, but too stupid
to learn how to do it; and finally, that if all Chris-
tians were to be obliged to live at home, their race
would soon be extinct;" and "an old man swore
that we were not worthy of a mouthful of bread."*
" They think that there are no people in the world
so active and brave as themselves, nor any so well
informed ; and they proudly say that they are at war
with all the world, and fear nobody." f
Upon one occasion, the Arab appears to have had
the best of the argument. " Ahomed made some
inquiries of me respecting the manufactories of my
own country, which I answered as well as I could ;
and I took the liberty to tell him how much better
he would be treated than we had been, if by any ac-
cident he should be thrown on our shores ; that, in
such an event, instead of being held in bondage, and
sold from tribe to tribe, our sultan would have him
conducted back to his native country in safety. He
heard me out, and then warmly retorted upon me as
follows : — ' You say, if I were in your country, your
persons shall forfeit and pay unto our Sovereign Lord the King
the full sum of tin pounds current money."
* Loss of the Oswego, p. 148. t Ibid. 144,
CAPTAIN PADDOCK. 469
people would treat me better than I treat you. There
is no truth in you. If I were there, I should be
doomed to perpetual slavery, and be put to the hardest
labour in tilling your ground. You are too lazy to
work yourselves in your fields, and therefore send
your ships to the negro coast, and, in exchange for
the useless trinkets with which you cheat the poor
negroes, you take away ship-loads of them to your
country, from which never one returns ; and had your
own ship escaped our shore, you yourself would now
be taking the poor negroes to everlasting slavery.'
" Although the purpose of my voyage had been
very different from what Ahomed suspected, yet I felt
the sting of this reproach in a manner that I can
never forget."
Upon another occasion, Ahomed drew no very
flattering comparison between the conduct of Christ-
ians and that of the followers of the Prophet. " The
negroes are men that you Christian dogs have taken
from the Guinea country, a climate that suits them
best. You are worse than Arabs, who enslave you
only when it is God's will to send you to our coast.
Never, I must confess, did I feel a reproach more
sensibly."*
The distinction made by the Arab between the
conduct of Mussulmans and Christians, was as just as
it was ingenious. Their creed permits the disciples
of the true Prophet to enslave the heretics ; whereas,
our purer faith says, u Whatsoever ye would that
men should do to you, do ye even so to them ;" and
* Loss of the Oswego, p. 112.
470 THE REMEDY.
abounds in noble passages, denouncing God's wrath
against the oppressor, and particularly that oppressor
who is a man-stealer, and " who taketh his neigh-
bour's labour without wages, and giveth him nought
for his work."
We remember the time when a negro slave who
absconded was convicted and punished as a thief.
He had run away with his master's chattels, i. e. his
own body. The Arab seems to have adopted a some-
what similar train of reasoning. " After a few
minutes' silence," says Captain Paddock, " Ahomed
accosted me in the following manner : — ' There is
no confidence to be placed in Christians ; for when-
ever they come ashore on our coast, they bury their
money in the sand, as you yourself have done, to
prevent it from falling into the hands of the true
believers. It is our property. We pray earnestly
to the Almighty God to send Christians ashore here :
he hears our prayers, and often sends us good ships ;
and if you did as you ought to do, we should have the
benefit of them."*
It is very curious that, in the course of their jour-
ney, they fell in with a tribe of African abolitionists
and Mahommedan quakers. At one town their re-
ception was different to what it had usually been.
" I inquired," said Paddock, " who they were. He
replied, ' They belong to a sect called Foulah.
They will not mix with the other inhabitants, but
choose to live altogether by themselves ; and are so
stupid, that if the Emperor of Morocco should march
* Loss of the Oswego, p. 190.
CAPTAIN PADDOCK. 471
an army to cut off the whole race, they would not de-
fend themselves, hut would die like fools, as they are.'
I asked him if they used fire-arms. ' No,' said he,
* they make no use of them ; and if God was pleased
to send a Christian ship ashore near them, they would
neither seize upon the goods nor the men, nor would
they huy a slave of any kind.' I asked him if they
were numerous ; and he answered, ' No, they are not
numerous ; but the dwellings you see on the sides of
the hills yonder are theirs, and in many other places
they are to be found ; and wherever they are, they
always keep together by themselves.' Finally, I
asked him if they were Mahometans. 'Yes,' he
answered, ' they are, or else we would destroy them ;
but they are poor ignorant dogs, and little better
than the Christians.' "*
I should feel myself called upon to apologise to my
readers for these lengthened quotations, were it not
important to show that Europeans and Christians
are not proof against that moral poison which belongs
to oppression. Let a man, European, American, or
African, imbibe that taint, and its virulence will be
manifest in the stupidity of his understanding, in the
deadness of his moral sense ; it will be visible to the
eye of the most careless observer, even in the external
features and carriage of its victim. Reduced to the con-
dition of a slave, he will droop and relax, and become
good for nothing, or next to nothing. We see that
a race fortified by early association, by the resources
of intellect and education, and by the elevating prin-
* Loss of the Oswego, p. 199.
472 THE REMEDY.
ciples of Christianity, placed in precisely the same
circumstances as the African, exhibits precisely the
same degree of degeneracy. And can we wonder
that they who have so long been the victims of every
species of cruelty, should not as yet have put forth
those generous qualities and that higher order of in-
tellect which will not grow, except in a genial atmo-
sphere, and on a favouring soil ? Does not this rescue
the African from the supposed stigma of inferiority ?
Franklin defines a slave to be " an animal who eats
as much, and works as little, as possible." The
black, the brown, the red, the white races of men,
are alike indolent when they want a motive for exer-
tion. " Ye be idle, ye be idle," was the reproach of
Pharaoh to his Israelitish bondsmen ; " ye be idle,
ye be idle," says the master to the slave in all nations
and in all ages.
" 'T is liberty alone that gives the flow'r
Of fleeting life its lustre and perfume,
And we are weeds without it.
I now proceed to the enumeration of the symptoms
which lead me to hope that in due time the African
races may be excited to industry, ingenuity, and
perseverance.
I admit that on the coast there is a belt of slave-
trading chiefs, who, at present, find it more pro-
fitable to supply the slave-markets than to conduct
a legitimate commerce. Little business can be done
when there are any slavers at their stations, — indeed,
llic fair traders are always compelled to wait until
the human cargoes are completed. These chiefs
INDICATIONS OF CAPABILITY. 473
not only obstruct the fair trader on the coast,
but as much as possible prevent his access to the
interior. Insecurity, demoralisation, and degrada-
tion are the results ; but as we recede from the
coast, and ascend the rivers, comparative civilisation is
found, industry becomes apparent, and no inconsider-
able skill in many useful arts is conspicuous. All
travellers have observed the superior cultivation, and
comparatively dense population of the inland regions.
Laird, in ascending the Niger, writes, " Both banks
of the river are thickly studded with towns and vil-
lages ; I could count seven from the place where we
lay aground; and between Eboe and the confluence of
the rivers, there cannot be less than 40, one generally
occurring every two or three miles. The principal
towns are Attah and Addakudda ; and averaging the
inhabitants at 1,000, will, I think, very nearly give
the population of the banks. * * * The
general character of the people is much superior to
that of the swampy country between them and the
coast. They are shrewd, intelligent, and quick in
their perception, milder in their disposition, and
more peaceable in their habits." Oldfield says
(vol. i. p. 163,) that, from the great number of towns
they passed, he is inclined to suppose that the popu-
lation must be very dense indeed. And (vol. ii. p.
17,) ™ no sooner does the traveller approach one town,
than he discovers three or four, and sometimes five
others." Park speaks (vol. ii. p. 80,) of the " hills
cultivated to the very summit, and the surplus grain
employed in purchasing luxuries from native traders."
474 THE REMEDY.
Laing speaks (p. 156) with delight of " the extensive
meadows, clothed in verdure, and the fields from which
the springing rice and ground-nuts were sending forth
their green shoots, not inferior in beauty and health
to the corn-fields of England, interspersed here and
there with a patch of ground studded with palm-
trees." Tuckey reports (p. 342) a similar improvement
in the face of the country at some distance up the
Congo, where he found towns and villages following
each other in rapid succession. Ashmun, writing from
Liberia, says, " An excursion of some of our people
into the country, to the distance of about 140 miles,
has led to a discovery of the populousness and com-
parative civilisation of this district of Africa, never
till within a few months even conjectured by myself.
We are situated within 50 leagues of a country, in
which a highly improved agriculture prevails ; where
the horse is a common domestic animal, where ex-
tensive tracts of land are cleared and enclosed, where
every article absolutely necessary to comfortable life
is produced by the skill and industry of the inhabit-
ants; where the Arabic is used as a written language
in the ordinary commerce of life ; where regular and
abundant markets and fairs are kept ; and where a
degree of intelligence and practical refinement dis-
tinguishes the inhabitants, little compatible with the
personal qualities attached, in the current notions of
the age, to the people of Guinea." *
The wants of the people in Africa must not, any
more than their industry and enterprise, be judged of
* From Miss. Regr. for 1828, p. 335.
INDICATIONS OF CAPABILITY. 475
by what is observable on the coast. The Moors,
who have preceded us in the interior, have imparted
more knowledge of commercial transactions than we
may suppose. Captain Clapperton told Mr. Hamilton
that he could have negotiated a bill on the Treasury
of London at Soccatoo. The Moors have introduced
the use of the Arabic in mercantile affairs ; and that
language is nearly as useful in Africa, as the French
language is in Europe. In 1812, Mr. Willis, for-
merly British Consul for Senegambia, stated his belief
that in the warehouses of Timbuctoo were accumu-
lated the manufactures of India and Europe, and that
the immense population of the banks of the Niger
are thence supplied. A Moorish merchant reported
to Mr. Jackson, that between Mushgrelia and Houssa
there were more boats employed on the river than
between Rosetta and Cairo ; and that the fields of that
country were enclosed and irrigated by canals and
water-wheels,* — a demonstrative proof of the activity,
industry, and civilisation of the people.
" Thirty years' experience," says an African mer-
chant (Mr. Johnston), " of the natives, derived from
living amongst them for the whole of that period,
leaves a strong impression on my mind that, with
due encouragement, they wou Id readily be led to the
cultivation of the soil, which I think in most places
capable of growing anything." Mr. Laird, in a letter
to me, observes, — " As to the character of the inhabit-
ants, I can only state that, if there is one characteristic
* Jackson's Timbuctoo, pp. 24, 38, and 427.
2i
476 THE REMEDY.
that distinguishes an African from other uncivilised
people, it is his love of, and eagerness for, traffic : men,
women, and children trade in all directions. They have
regular market-places where they bring the produce
of their fields, their manufactures, their ivory, and
everything they can sell. * * * At the Iccory-Mar-
ket I have seen upwards of one hundred large
canoes, each holding from ten to forty men, all
trading peaceably together. I was informed by the
natives that it was considered neutral ground, and
that the towns at war with one another, attended the
same market amicably." The industrious inhabit-
ants of the Grain Coast supply Sierra Leone, and
Liberia with the greatest portion of their food.
One of the sub-agents of the Slave Trading Com-
pany, which I have already noticed, thus writes to his
principal from the town of Gotto, about ten leagues
up the river Benin, of date 20th June, 1837: " I
was astonished to see so large a market the day I
arrived. The town is large and eligible ; there were
at least 4000 persons at market with all sorts of com-
modities for sale."
Of their capabilities of improvement we may judge
from the rude efforts of negroes transported from
North America, or liberated from slave-ships at
Sierra Leone. What these men have wanted, as
Colonel Denham remarks, is " instruction, example,
and capital ;" and he adds, " that, with the small
amount of either that they have received, it is a sub-
* Class A, 1838-9, p. 64.
COMMERCE WITH THE EASTERN COAST. 477
ject of astonishment to him that they have done what
they have."— (Despatch, 21st May, 1829.) They
supply the market of Freetown with plenty of fruit
and vegetables, such as yams, cassada, Indian corn,
ground-nuts, pine-apples, sugar-canes, &c, &c.
Nearly the same account may be given of the exu-
berant fertility of the eastern as of the western coast,
and of the lucrative character of the commerce which
might be there carried on were it not for the de-
structive Slave Trade. I have been informed by
the captain of a merchant- vessel who was long on the
eastern coast, that before the Slave Trade absorbed
the whole attention of the people, two merchant-ships
used to be annually despatched from Lisbon, which
for the most paltry outfit, brought home return car-
goes of from 40,000/. to 60,000/.*
Other testimonies might be added to show that
the African is not wanting in those qualities which
accompany civilisation, and he only requires that a
right direction should given to his industry and intel-
ligence, to qualify him for intercourse with the more
refined European.
* The gentleman who furnished this information, mentions the
following articles of commerce on the eastern coast of Africa : —
Gold, silver, copper, iron, ivory, horns, tallow, hides, skins, tor-
toiseshell, ostrich-feathers, pearls, ambergris, amber, gums and
various drugs, palm-oil, cocoa-nut oil, black whale-oil, sperm-
oil, bees'-wax in great abundance, coffee, tobacco, indigo, corn,
rice, &c. A most profitable trade might also be carried on in
cowries, which abound on the coast, where he has purchased them
at 4d. a-bushel ; on the western coast they are the current coin,
and are told out by the hundred. All these articles find a ready
market at Ceylon, Bombay, and Calcutta.
2 i 2
478 THE REMEDY.
The eagerness with which the Timmanees entered
into the laborious and fatiguing work of cutting,
squaring, and floating to the trading stations the
immense bodies of heavy teak timber exported froni
Sierra Leone, is a convincing proof of their readi-
ness to engage in any employment where they can
get a reward, however small, for their labour. It
is well known that during the time the timber trade
was in activity^ several native towns were formed on
the banks of the river, and many natives came from
a distance up the country to engage in it. Timber
was cut at the termination of the largest creeks at
Port Logo, and even so far as Rokou, and floated
down to Tombo, Bance Island, and Tasso. (Laing,
p. 77.)*
I have lately seen a portion of the Journal of the
Rev. W. Fox, written at Macarthy's Island, in which,
of date September 3, 1836, he mentions having given
away a considerable number of Arabic Scriptures to
Mandingoes, and to Serrawoollies, or Tiloboonkoes,
as they are here more generally termed ; which lite-
rally means Eastern people, as they come from the
neighbourhood of, and beyond, Bondou, and are strict
Mahommetans. They come here and hire themselves
* " Twenty years ago," says Laird (vol. ii. p. 3G3), " African
timber was unknown in the English market. There are now
from 13,000 to 15,000 loads annually imported. In 1832 Mr.
Forster, in a letter to Lord Goderich, stated the importation as
high as ' from 15,000 to 20,000 loads, giving employment to
20,000 tons of shipping annually.' From 3,000 to 4,000 loads
of rod teak-wood are exported annually from the Gambia, " and
tlic mahogany from that river is now much used for furniture,
INGENUITY OF NATIVES. 479
as labourers for several months, and with the articles
they receive in payment barter them again on their
way home for more than their actual value on this
island.
The Kroomen who inhabit Cape Palmas are a
most extraordinary race of men. They neither sell
nor allow themselves to be made slaves. These men
leave their homes young, and work on hoard the
trading vessels on the coast, or at Sierra Leone,
Their attachment to their country is great, nor will
they engage themselves for more than three years.
" To my mind," says Mr. Laird, in the letter to me
which I have before quoted, " these men appear
destined by Providence to be the means of enabling
Europeans to penetrate into the remotest parts of
Africa by water. They are patient, enduring, faith-
ful, easily kept in order, and brave to rashness when
led by white men. Any number may be got at
wages from two to four dollars per month."
We thus find that little difficulty exists in pro-
curing either labourers or seamen in Africa.
To those disposed to make the necessary allow-
ances, it is something to know that it has been
remarked by many travellers, that the Africans are by
no means devoid of aptitude and ingenuity in imi-
tating European manufactures. Thus, at the island
of Tombo Mr. Rankin* saAv the lock of a rifle which
had been so well repaired by a Foulah, who had never
seen any but the fractured one, that strict examina-
tion was necessary to discover what part had been
* Rankin, vol. i. p. 1 30.
480 THE REMEDY.
replaced. In Benin they make muskets, procuring
only the locks from Europe ; and at the market of
Jenne, DeCaillie observed gunpowder, of an inferior
kind indeed to ours, but of home manufacture. In most
parts of Africa the natives have some notion of work-
ing metals.* They are acquainted with many dyes,
and make much use of indigo. Colonel Denhamf says
that the dark blue of the tobes (or tunic) worn in
Bornou cannot be excelled in any part of the world ;
and Kano is famed for its indigo establishments. I am
told that they are also acquainted with a plant which
produces a more brilliant blue than the indigo. From
other vegetable substances they obtain other colours ;
thus Wadstrom stated to the Committee of 1790, J
that the whole army of the king of Darnel was clothed
in cloth of native manufacture, dyed orange and
brown. They also give a red or black dye to their
leather ; for the tanning of which they use several
kinds of bark. §
In the year 1818 Mr. Clarkson had a conference,
on the subject of the Slave Trade, with the Emperor
Alexander at Aix-la-Chapelle. I have before me
a private letter which he wrote to J, J. Gurney,
Esq., describing the interview. He states that he
exhibited articles in leather, in iron, in gold, in
cotton cloth, mats, &c. " Having gone over all
* The Rev. Mr. Fox has recently presented me with two gold
rings of excellent workmanship, manufactured by a native of the
Gambia.
t Clapperton, p. CO.
I Abbrcv. Evid. vol. iii. p. 10.
§ Rankin, vol. i. p, 132. Clapperton, p. 61, 62.
THE EMPEROR ALEXANDER. 481
the articles, the Emperor desired me to inform him
whether he was to understand that these articles were
made by the Africans in their own country, that is>
in their own native villages ; or after they had arrived
in America, where they would have an opportunity
of seeing European manufactures. I replied, that
such articles might be found in every African village,
both on the coast and in the interior ; and that they
were samples of their own ingenuity, without any
connection with Europeans. ' Then,' said the Em-
peror, ' you have given me a new idea of the state of
these poor people. I was not aware that they were
so far advanced in society. The works you have
shown me are not the works of brutes, but of men
endued with rational and intellectual powers, and
capable of being brought to as high a degree of pro-
ficiency as other men. Africa ought to be allowed
to have a fair chance of raising her character in the
scale of the civilised world.' I replied that it was
the cruel traffic which had prevented her from rising
to a level with other countries, and that it was really
astonishing to me that the natives had, under its im-
peding influence, arrived at the perfection which dis-
played itself in the specimens he had just seen. The
Emperor replied that it was equally astonishing to
him, for that wherever the trade existed, a man could
have no stimulus to labour ; being subject every hour
to be taken away for a slave, he could not tell whether
he should enjoy the fruits of it ; he was sure upon
this principle that no man in Africa would sow more
corn than was sufficient for his own consumption ;
482 THE REMEDY.
and so the same principle would prove an obstacle to
any extraordinary cultivation of the works of art."
The natives have some turn both for husbandry and
gardening. In the more settled parts of the interior
more pains are taken with cultivation, and even the
slaves are said to work better than those on the coast.
One of the best specimens of African agriculture is
given by De Caillie, as observed by him at Kimba, on
the road between Kankan and Jenne : —
" I walked about in the neighbourhood of our
habitation, and was delighted with the good cultiva-
tion ; the natives raise little mounds of earth in which
they plant their pistachios and yams ; and these
mounds are arranged with some taste, all of the same
height, and in rows. Rice and millet are sown in
trenches ; as soon as the rainy season commences, they
put in the seed around their habitations, and when
the maize is in flower they plant cotton between the
rows. The maize is ripe very early, and they then
fill it up to make room for the other crop. If they
do not plant cotton, they turn up the ground after the
maize is got in, and transplant the millet into it, a
practice which I never observed in Kankan. I was
surprised to find these good people so laborious and
careful ; on every side in the country I saw men and
women weeding the fields. They grow two crops
in the year on the same land ; I have seen rice in
ear, and other rice by its side scarcely above the
ground."*
Agriculture is obviously one of the first ails to
* Dc Caillic's Travels, vol. i. p. 293, 294.
THE BIBLE AND THE PLOUGH, 483
which we ought to direct their attention, not merely
as furnishing the surest ground for our future com-
mercial intercourse, but as tendingto bring the people
into a condition of life most favourable for the recep-
tion and spread of Christianity. When Mr. Read
set forth to convert the Bushmen on the frontier of
Cape colony, he is reported to have said, " We take a
plough with us ; but let it be remembered, that in
Africa the Bible and the plough go together." And
in the same spirit should I desire that our operations
might be carried on. At present, indeed, trade (the
barter of such articles as the country spontaneously
produces, and which may suffice for the limited demand
Africa has hitherto known,) is likely to be more to
their taste than an occupation requiring regular
labour ; still the Cultivation which has arisen in many
places on the stoppage of the Slave Trade, the ground-
nuts grown for sale on the Gambia, the corn raised
for exportation on the Gold Coast, the cutting of
timber at Sierra Leone, and the preparation of palm-
oil at the mouths of the Niger, prove that these people
may be led to adopt new methods of earning wealth
by honest industry. In fact I think it is evident that,
as Sir R. Mends wrote in 1823 to the Admiralty,
'• Avherever the traffic in slaves has been checked, the
natives have shown a fair and reasonable desire for
cultivating the productions of their country."*
* It is impossible not to observe with regret how little these
" desires" have met with encouragement from Europeans. Cap-
tain Arabin, in describing the fertile banks of the river Cassa-
manza, where the Portuguese have factories, thus refers to the
484 THE REMEDY.
The negro's aptitude for letters has, as we may
well suppose, been still less exercised than his manual
skill ; but we have proof, I think, that as a race, they
are by no means deficient. On this point I may
quote the words of an accurate observer, a Quaker
lady,* who devoted much of her life to the promotion
of African education, and at last sacrificed it in the
cause.
" If my heart might speak from what my eye has
seen, I would say I am fully convinced that it is not
any inferiority in the African mind, or natural capa-
city, that has kept them in so depressed a state in the
scale of society, but the lack of those advantages which
are, in the usual order of Providence, made use of as
instruments for the advancement and improvement of
human beings. Those disadvantages which they, in
common with other uncivilised natives, have suffered,
have with them been cruelly increased, by that oppres-
sion, which, wherever exercised, has a natural ten-
inhabitants, who, though now hardly to be distinguished from the
aboriginal negroes, yet are partly descended from the first settlers.
" They have remarkably fine cotton and indigo, and manufacture
from them cloth of a dye and texture highly esteemed in Africa,
and susceptible of much greater improvement ; but the Portuguese,
neglecting these advantages and capabilities of a people who have
a mixture of their own blood in their veins, direct their attention
almost wholly to the traffic in slaves, and sell indiscriminately
these ingenious artificers, with their wives and children, whenever
they can catch them." — " State of the Slave Trade," in the Amulet,
183:2, p. 218.
* Hannah Kilham, who made three voyages to Africa for the sake
of acquainting herself with the native languages ; she reduced to
writing the Wolof or Juloof, in which bIic printed reading lessons.
HANNAH KILHAM. 485
dency to fetter, to depress, and to blunt the powers
of the mind ; and it is very unfair, and a great aggra-
vation of the cruelty, to reflect on the victims of it, as
wanting ability for any other station than that which
they have been suffered to fill. I do not think that
even here [Sierra Leone] Africans have had a fair
trial of what they might be, had they the same advan-
tages in education, and circumstances connected with
education, which Europeans have been favoured with,
yet their intelligent countenances, and the ability they
show when rightly instructed, evince certainly no
deficiency in the natural powers of the mind ; they
come here, as to a foreign land, the language of
which is quite strange and unknown to them, they are
taught in this strange language, (those of them who
have school instruction,) from lists of detached words,
spelling lessons, many of which they never hear but
in those lessons, and their meaning therefore remains
unknown. "*
" It seems very evident from what we hear, that
civilisation is prevented, or has been prevented, along
the coast, by the prevalence of the horrid traffic in
men ; and the interior, north of the line, is much more
civilised than near the coast. The interior of the
south appears to be little known. I wish the scep-
tical as to African capacity could have seen a Foulah
man, of striking and intelligent countenance, who was
here the other clay, and have heard his melodious
reading of Arabic manuscripts. I am informed, both
here and in the Gambia, that the Mahomedans of
* Letter from H. Kilham to W. Allen, 1824.
486 THE REMEDY.
Western Africa are the most orderly and well con-
ducted part of the African population. Their zeal
in the promotion of Arabic schools should stimulate
Europeans of higher profession. If persons be suit-
ably introduced, so as that their designs are fully
known, I believe intercourse, where only good is
intended, would, in most places, be made more easy
than some are willing to believe." *
Facilities for giving Instruction.
There is no more encouraging feature than the
readiness which has been generally observed on the
part of the negroes, to obtain for their children, and
sometimes for themselves, the advantages of educa-
tion. Their love of acquiring knowledge, especially
that of languages, is thus spoken of by Mr. Laird.
" The eagerness with which the Africans thirst
after knowledge, is a very striking feature in their
character ; on the coast great numbers have learned
to read writing from the captains of merchant vessels, "t
He mentions that the late Duke Ephraim, chief of
Old Calabar, though he could not read a newspaper,
yet considered it essential to have a supply of books.
" The schools at Sierra Leone and Cape Coast have
done most, if not all, the good that has been done. I
know an instance now of a captured slave, resident
at Fernando Po, who sent his son to England for
education. All the chiefs would gladly pay for the
* Appendix to Second Report of African Instruction Society,
p. II.
t Laird, vol. ii. p. 395.
ANXIETY FOR INSTRUCTION. 487
board and education of their children. In the interior,
in every village where Mahommedanism is professed,
the children crowd to learn to mutter Arabic prayers
and scraps of the Koran."
Liberia presents the example of a black commu-
nity managing their own affairs on civilised principles.
There, besides the governor, there is scarcely a white
man in authority. They have two public libraries, a
press, and the journal of the colony, "The Liberian
Herald," is edited by a negro, the son of a slave of
Virginia, and frequently contains able dissertations
written by men of the same race.
Mr. Ashmun found the natives bordering on the
American Colony of Liberia very desirous of putting
their children under his care. He writes in a Re-
port, 1825 : — " No man of the least consideration in
the country, will desist from his importunities until at
least one of his sons is fixed in some settler's family.*
At this time many of the natives reside in the
colony, and are gradually adopting the habits of civi-
lised life. Many came thither for the express pur-
pose of obtaining a Christian education, for which
purpose, also, many of the native kings continue to
send their sons. Missionaries of various denomina-
tions have penetrated into the neighbouring states,
and all have sent cheering accounts of their success
and prospects. f
* Life of Ashmun, p. 211.
t Address of Judge Payne to the Vermont Colonisation Society,
1838.
488 THE REMEDY.
Two Wesleyan ministers, Messrs. Dove and Bad-
ger, visited the " Plantains," an island on the mouth
of the < Sherbro', in April, 1839.
Mr. Dove says, " The island has a beautiful
appearance, and the cattle on it look as fine as
any I ever saw in my native land. The island,
though small, belongs to King Calker,who treated us
with great kindness. We took up our abode in the
royal apartments, and the next day we dined with his
Majesty. He is certainly a sensible man, and seems to
be quite free from the vile and superstitious customs
practised throughout the ' Sherbro' country ; he pos-
sesses a pretty good knowledge of English, and ex-
pressed a wish to have a missionary to live with him ;
we had the high gratification of seeing him reading
an English Bible. His brother, also, is a sincere
inquirer after truth: having received some instruc-
tion when young, and living in Freetown, he now
instructs both children and adults, and when we wit-
nessed the result of this king's brother's labour, we
could not but rejoice. He has translated several
portions of the sacred Scriptures, catechisms, and
some of our excellent hymns, into the ' Sherbro' lan-
guage : he wishes me, if possible, to get them printed
for the use of the heathen around him."
Besides this eagerness on the part of the African
tribes to obtain intellectual and useful instruction,
there is also a most encouraging willingness to re-
ceive, and listen to, the teachers of Christianity. In-
deed, I am not aware of any instance of Christian
ANXIETY FOR INSTRUCTION. 489
teachers having been repelled, when their object has
been fairly understood, except, indeed, by the noto-
rious influence of European Slave Traders. These
miscreants obliged the church missionaries to leave
some of their stations ; an event deeply to be re-
gretted, as they had established some excellent
schools on the Rio Pongas": one of their scholars
was Simeon Wilhelm, who died in England in 1817,
and was well knoAvn as a young man of remarkable
promise.*
Within the last three years Mr. Fox has visited
the chiefs of Woolli, Bondou, Barra, and Nyani, and
obtained from all, Pagan and Mahomedan, invitations
for missionaries. The following is the account he
gives of an interview with Saada, the Almamy of
Bondou.
On Saturday, April 28, 1838, Mr. Fox reached
Boollibanny, the capital of the Mahomedan state of
Bondou, and on the following day had an interview
with Saada, who was encamped six miles from the
city, and was about to start on a marauding expedi-
tion. On being introduced, Mr. Fox immediately
stated the object of his journey, adding that he had
visited the kingdoms of Barra, Nyani, and Woolli, and
that those kings were favourable to his design ; and
giving, at the Almamy's request, a brief summary of
the doctrines and precepts of Christianity. The
Almamy replied, that all that had been said was very
good ; and that Mr. Fox might look at the Bondou
* See the Life of Wilhelm, by the Rev. Mr. Bickersteth.
490 THE REMEDY.
ground, and inform him when he had fixed upon a
place ; but that he and his people must still follow
Mahomet.
" This being ended," Mr. Fox continues, " I told
him I had one request to make ; namely, that he
would abandon the Avar he had in contemplation.
In reply to my request, the Almamy asked, Why I
did not wish him to go to war ? I answered, From
the misery that must of necessity follow ; but espe-
cially because of the Divine command given to
Moses, ' Thou shalt do no murder.' Shortly after
this, I shook hands with this powerful chief, and we
returned to our lodgings at Boollibanny.
" About an hour afterwards, to my surprise and
that of others, the Almamy and his war-tribe came
galloping home."
Mr. Freeman's visit to Ashantee has been already
noticed. On this occasion his converts gave proof of
the effect of the gospel which he had preached to them.
No nation could have been more barbarously treated by
another, than the Fantees by the Ashantees ; who
had exercised their power in the most ferocious man-
ner, not only slaying them by thousands in the field,
and destroying their villages, but putting hundreds of
them to death by torture. It has been only British
protection that has preserved the weaker race ; yet
no sooner did the ill-used Fantees hear of Mr. Free-
man's views than they entered fully into them, and
became, as he says, " not only willing, but anxious
for him to go up to Coomassie." Such a salutary
AGENTS TO BE OBTAINED. 491
feeling has religion wrought in them, that they are
now making a voluntary subscription to send the
gospel to their blood-thirsty enemies.
We have also seen the results of Mr. Freeman's
evpedition ; the impression made upon his mind was
thus stated by himself after his return. " I am happy
to inform you, that through the mercy of the God
of missions, I have surmounted every difficulty, and
returned fully satisfied that even the sanguinary
Ashantees are ready to receive the gospel, and that,
as soon as the committee can send a good supply of
missionaries to this station, we shall, by the blessing
of God, establish a mission among that people." *
In their last report, the Church Missionary Society
state that they also hope soon to be able to extend
their operations from Sierra Leone into the interior,
that some preliminary excursions had been made
by the missionaries, and that the reception they met
with from the people was encouraging.
Agents to be obtained.
We have already seen the desirableness of edu-
cating and civilising the inhabitants of Africa ; and
a number of facts have been brought to light, tending
to show, that there is at least as great a readiness on
their part to receive instruction, as on ours to com-
municate it ; the question now remains — Who are
to be the instructors? The climate is generally
viewed as unfavourable to Europeans, and this being
* Wesleyan Missionary Notices, November, 1839, p. 1G6.
2 K
492 THE REMEDY^
the case, I have great satisfaction in finding, that
from among the liberated Africans in our West In-
dian Colonies, we are likely to he furnished with a
number of persons, in whom are united the desirable
qualifications of fitness for the climate, competency to
act as teachers, and willingness to enter upon the
work.
An important feature of the present time is this,
that the exertions of the missionaries in the West
Indies are beginning to tell on their converts in the
missionary spirit which they have imparted. There
is a feeling in the hearts of our emancipated negroes
towards the land of their origin, which seems to have
arisen spontaneously in various congregations.
Last December, in the hope that openings might
ere long occur for the employment of native agents,
I addressed, through the Rev. Mr. Trew, a circular
to the heads of missionary societies, inquiring whe-
ther trustworthy persons could be found for various
departments of our operations. Before answers
could be received, the Rev. Mr. Dyer, the secretary
of the Baptist Missionary Society, transmitted to me
an inquiry on their part in the following letter to
the committee at home, from the minister of one of
their congregations in Jamaica.
Mont ego Bay, Jan. 2\st, 1S39.
" We beg to press upon your attention a subject of
vast importance, and shall feel thankful if, at the
very earliest opportunity, you will bring it before the
AGENTS TO BE OBTAINED. 493
members of the committee, with our earnest request
that they will take it into their prayerful and serious
consideration, and without delay adopt measures to
realise the desires of many thousands of their fellow
Christians in this island. The subject is, a mission
to the interior of Western Africa ; the land from
which the beloved people of our charge, or their
forefathers, were stolen, and which is at present
without the light of the gospel, and suffering under
accumulated wrongs. We, their ministers, feel on
this subject an intense interest, while in their hearts
the strongest emotions are excited for the perishing
land of their fathers. The conversion of Africa to
God is the theme of their conversation and their
prayers, and the object of their most ardent desires.
For this they are willing to toil, and devote the fruits
of their labour, while some are anxious to go them-
selves, and proclaim to their kindred the love of
Christ in dying for their salvation. In short, a feel-
ing prevails among the members of our churches, to
check which would be to injure their piety, and we
believe avouM grieve that Divine Spirit, by whose
gracious influences those feelings have been excited.
" There being no direct communication between
this island and Africa, and few sources of information
respecting that country being opened to us, we are at
a loss to fix upon any plan to carry our desires into
effect, and are therefore desirous that the committee
should give it all the consideration it demands, and as
early as possible communicate their sentiments to us."
2k2
494 THE REMEDY.
The following letter to myself, from a highly
respectable gentleman, is of a somewhat similar
character : —
Kingston, Jamaica, May 1st, 1839.
" It is very remarkable that before being acquainted
with the movements in England, we had been acting
in some measure practically on your principle. Three
or four months ago a large meeting, consisting of
betwixt 2000 and 3000 persons, was held in this
city, for the purpose of considering the best means of
Christianising Africa, by such Christian agency as we
could collect in this island. I was president of that
meeting, and on my return home, what was my
surprise to find upon my table Mr. Trew's circular,
inquiring to what extent a Christian commercial
agency for operations in Africa, could be procured
here ! We have had since another meeting,
when a society was organised for the Evangelisation
of Africa, by means of native agency. The object
has excited the deepest interest in the black popula-
tion, and I have no doubt be shall we able to make
a commencement at least. Your plan is much more
extensive. I think you may rely on securing from
the West Indies an agency of negro and coloured
persons, efficient for establishments either civil or
commercial, as might be thought advisable, A
good common education is generally within the reach
of all classes now The negro is naturally a
very susceptible creature, perhaps naturally the most
AGENTS TO BE OBTAINED. 495
favourably disposed of any of the human family, to
receive and avail himself of the advantages which
may be put in his way ; but by some fatality, un-
accountable on any principle, save that ' the time to
favour it had not come,' the tribe has remained an
outcast, and the country a waste.
" One poor African, named James Keats, left this
country a few months ago, really on a pilgrimage to
his native land, that he might carry the gospel there.
We are anxious to hear of him. He had reached
Sierra Leone, and had, I believe, embarked in Her
Majesty's ship Rattlesnake for the Congo river,
which he intends to ascend."
I have also received a letter from the Rev. John
Beecham, stating that a number of agents might be
obtained from among the Wesleyan negroes in the
West Indies, who are already qualified for the work
" to a good extent," and who, by the necessary
training, might prove valuable auxiliaries to the
cause.
The Rev. Mr. Holberton, Rector of St. John's,
has also stated his views on the subject, in a letter
to the Rev. Mr. Trew, dated Antigua, March 6, 1839,
of which the following is an extract : —
" The subject of your circular has long occupied
my mind ; and now that it has come, soliciting
inquiry on the point, I cannot help laying before you
what seems to me a very feasible, and comparatively
inexpensive mode of proceeding in this deeply in-
496 THE REMEDY.
teresting work. Instead of having a college erected
in one of the islands for the reception of native black
and coloured youths of promise, I would respectfully
recommend that an agent be sent to this island, and
there gather about him a band of black and coloured
youths, to be trained and educated expressly for the
employments proposed in your letter, more especially
as missionaries. Nothing is better than an infant
school as the first training place for the future
missionary, as he is there likely to be moulded into
a pains-taking, persevering, simple-minded man.
" From persons so employed and approved, your
agent might make a selection. Such as he made
choice of should be trained by him, and domesticated
with him for a time ; and when the necessary
measure of fitness was apparent, should be sent for
one year to the Church Missionary Society's college
in England. And when you forward them from
England, send as their superintendent, one of our-
selves, a minister who shall direct their energies
aright, bear with their weaknesses, and keep united
heart and mind in the great work on which they had
been sent out. I do not see how you can move a
step in this great undertaking without sending out
an agent of decided piety, sound judgment, and com-
petent ability, to instruct and direct those who are to
be committed to his charge ; but let him be no
sectarian.
" On the whole, then, you will see that I do not
hold the scheme which you state in your letter to be
AGENTS TO BE OBTAINED. 497
at all a visionary one ; but am sanguine enough to
hope, that if you proceed on the plan I have ventured
to recommend, you will attain to the desired end by
a very speedy, and sure and safe way. I rejoice in
the prospect of such an undertaking. It will be the
most righteous compensation that could be made to
Africa for all the wrongs England, through for-
mer years, took part with other nations in doing
to her. Of a truth how beautiful will be to her, the
feet of the sons of those who were cruelly torn from
her soil in years past, returning to her shores again
with the everlasting gospel in their hands, and their
mouths opened to declare unto her what God hath
wrought."
The Rev. John Clark, baptist missionary in
Jamaica, stated to me, in a letter dated September
16, 1839, " that the case of Africa was exciting deep
sympathy amongst the members of his congregation."
He also named several negroes, already qualified to
some extent, who were willing and even anxious to
enter immediately upon the work; and stated his
full conviction that an ample number of native
agents might, after suitable education, be available
from the island of Jamaica, for the important pur-
poses of African instruction.
Advances already made.
To this it must be added that some advances have
already been made. The Church Missionary Society
have a normal school for the education of teachers
498 THE REMEDY.
at Sierra Leone; by the last statement it appears
that sixteen are now in the course of education, under
the effective instruction of the Rev. G. A. Kissling,
Avho speaks favourably of his scholars. By a sum-
mary, issued May, 1839, it appears that there are
5098 of all ages under the care of this society ; and
the report of this year states, " with thankfulness to
Almighty God, the steady progress of this first
established of the society's missions."
The Report of the Wesleyan mission for this year
has the following paragraph, p. 68 : — " The state of the
work at the West African stations is very gratifying,
and the openings for more extended usefulness are
most inviting. At Sierra Leone nearly 2000 per-
sons are united together in religious fellowship, and
the schools are prosperous. The stations at the
Gambia are increasing in importance. At Macarthy's
island the committee for the civilisation department
are exerting themselves for the benefit of the con-
verted natives. The kingdoms of Woolli and Bon-
dou, which the enterprising spirit of Mr. Fox has
explored, and other places, are open to the mission-
aries. At Cape Coast, the rapid spread of the
gospel calls for the most grateful acknowledgments
to Almighty God, who has crowned the labours
of his servants with signal success. And in the
midst of the discouragements resulting from the pain-
ful visitations of disease and death, which these mis-
sions from time to time experience, it is an alleviating
consideration that a native agency is rising up, by
ADVANCES ALREADY MADE. 499
which the work may at no distant period be prose-
cuted, without so large a sacrifice of life and health
on the part of European missionaries.''
The Wesley an s have declared their intention to
establish a college on Macarthy's island for the edu-
cation of children of natives of the higher classes, in
connexion with the experimental farm. One bene-
volent individual, Dr. Lindoe, has engaged to ^ive
£1000 to this institution.
The Church Missionaries have prepared, and with
the help of the Bible Society, printed, translations of
the gospel of St. Matthew in the Bullom, Mandingo,
and Susoo languages, in which they have also
printed grammars, or lesson-books, as well as in the
Eyo or Aku,* and the Sherbro. The American mis-
sionaries have published elementary books in the
Greybo and Bassa languages. I have before men-
tioned the Wolof lessons of Hannah Kilham. The
Rev. R. M. Macbrair, of the Wesleyan Society, has
published a complete grammar of the Mandingo.
Another Wesleyan missionary, the Rev. W. Arch-
bell, has published a grammar of the Sechuana lan-
guage of South Africa, which has been also critically
investigated by the French missionary, M. Casalis,
and is supposed to be the key to the dialect prevailing
from the Congo to Delagoa bay.
* It is worthy of remark that the Aku language has heen found
to be understood by the great majority of the captured negroes.
Mr. Ferguson is my authority for this : from this circumstance
important facilities are likely to arise.
500 THE REMEDY.
I am not amongst the number of those who derive
encouragement from the vicinity of the Mahomedans.
I must confess that I apprehend a more stubborn
resistance to the diffusion of knowledge, especially
that which is the best and the most civilising, from
the followers of the Prophet, than from the simple
and docile, though barbarous, tribes of Central Africa.
Mahomedanism also gives the sanction of religion to
the Slave Trade, and even enjoins it as a mode of
converting the heathen. That people are " Kaffer-
ing, and do not say their prayers, the dogs !" is suffi-
cient reason for the true believers making war upon
them,* and carrying them into slavery i Their pre-
judices are so deeply rooted, that some missionaries
do not hesitate to say they would rather deal with
Pagans than with Mahomedans.
Yet even with these there is some encouragement ;
to a certain extent they go along with us. There
are points in the Mahomedan faith which we may
turn to account in attempting to introduce better
instruction. The Mussulmans of the west do not
regard Christians with the same horror as those of
the east; they seem to be favourably impressed by
finding that we acknowledge much of their own
sacred history ; and with them, the names of Abraham
and Moses serve to recommend our holy books.
We may make common cause also with them in
Africa, in our common abhorrence of the bloody rites
and sacrifices of the Pagans. Thus Mr. Hutchison
* Denham, p. 149.
ADVANCES ALREADY MADE. 501
writes from Coomassie : — " This place now presents
the singular spectacle of a Christian and a Mahomedan
agreeing in two particulars — rejecting fetishes, and
absenting themselves from human sacrifices and other
abominations. The rest of the people, of whatever
country they may be, when the king's horns announce
anything of the kind, strive who will get there first,
to enjoy the agonies of the victims !"
Hitherto education has been entirely in the hands
of the Mahomedans ; and in fact, the Arabic is, to a
considerable extent, the common language of Central
Africa.
The travels of the Mahomedans have to a certain
degree enlarged their minds. They are the leaders
of most of the caravans, and some travel merely for
pleasure. Mr. Fox mentions seeing at Macarthy's
Island, a Moor who had come across the continent
from Medina, and was much interested on being
shown on a map the places he had passed through.
" When questioned as to the object he had in view in
coming so far, his answer was, he merely came for
' take walk' — ' he wished to see the Gambia, Senegal,
&c.' " Mr. Fox gave him the New Testament in
Arabic, which he read with tolerable ease.
It becomes evident, therefore, that our way is not
totally blocked up, but that there are many circum-
stances which will tend to facilitate our efforts for
disseminating knowledge and religion among those
who are the objects of our sympathy. And the
encouragement and stimulus to exertion which we
derive from these, ought to be in proportion to the
502 THE REMEDY.
magnitude of the enterprise we contemplate, and of
the results we expect will follow. The elevation of
the native mind, as it is the only compensation
we can offer for the injuries we have inflicted on
Africa, so it is the truest, the cheapest, and the
shortest road to the downfall of the Slave Trade, and
of those frightful superstitions which it has tended to
preserve.
In what way, then, can this advance of mind he
most effectually and speedily attained ? I answer in
the words of Mr. Burke, when speaking on a kindred
subject,* " I confess I trust more, according to the
sound principles of those who have at any time
ameliorated the state of mankind, to the effect and in-
fluence of religion, than to all the rest of the regula-
tions put together." The Gospel ever has been, and
ever must be, the grand civiliser of mankind. Hap-
pily for Africa, a mass of evidence is to be found cor-
roborative of this assertion, in the Report of the Com-
mittee of the House of Commons in the sessions 1833
and 1834, on the Aborigines Question, appointed to
consider, amongst other things, " what measures
ought to be adopted to promote the spread of civilisa-
tion among the Aborigines of our colonies, and to lead
them to the peaceful and voluntary reception of the
Christian religion." A main branch of that inquiry
was, " Whether the experience of the several mis-
sionary societies led to the belief that it would be
advisable to begin with civilisation in order to intro-
* Burke's Works, vol. ix. p. 287 : Letter to Dundas on Civilisa-
tion of Negroes in the Two Hemispheres.
CHRISTIANITY AND CIVILISATION. 503
duce Christianity, or with Christianity in order to
lead to civilisation." It is a striking fact, that the
representatives of the missionary bodies who were
examined on that occasion, without any previous con-
cert between themselves on the subject of the inquiry,
arrived at precisely the same conclusion, namely,
" That there is no means so effectual, under the divine
blessing, to benefit man for ' the life that now is,' as
well as ' that which is to come,' as Christianity."
In proof of this, Mr. Coates, secretary of the
Church Missionary Society, observes to the com-
mittee :
" I find the preceptive part of Christianity. tends to
make man peaceable, honest, sober, iudustrious, and
orderly. These, in my opinion, are the very elements
of civilisation, in the moral sense of it.
" The impression of its great principles on the
heart tends directly to make him humble, self-denying,
philanthropic, beneficent, apart from the consideration
of those effects which may be deemed more strictly of
a religious or theological kind. I see in it, there-
fore, an arrangement and process by which the human
mind is to be operated upon in a more powerful manner
than by any other agency that can be imagined.
" If I look at the world when, at the rise of Chris-
tianity, it found Rome in the zenith of her power
and glory, in the highest state of civilisation, as civi-
lisation could exist in a heathen land, at that period,
among other practices, that of selling their prisoners
of war into slavery, prevailed. I find, too, in their
gladiatorial games, man opposed to man in mortal
504 THE REMEDY.
conflict. And this not an accidental occurrence, or a
scene exhibited in private, but habitually at their
theatres, and to the most polished and distinguished
of the whole population. What do I find at the
expiration of a few ages ? Christianity gains the
ascendancy, and these things are extinct.
" I would only attempt further to illustrate this
bearing of the subject from three or four facts of a
recent date. At a recent period, suttees prevailed
throughout our possessions in India — they are now
prohibited : and this was effected by the expression
of Christian opinion and feeling in this country. I
look back on the enormous evils of the Slave Trade.
The Slave Trade is suppressed, and suppressed un-
questionably by the force of Christianity in this
country. I come to a still more recent period, and
see slavery abolished throughout all the British colo-
nies, and that at the cost of £20,000,000 of public
money ; the result most unquestionably of the state
of Christian principle and feeling.
" I now take up the question under a different
aspect — I mean as it is illustrated by the effects of
modern Protestant missions. I notice more particu-
larly those of the Church Missionary Society.
" Mr. George Clarke, a catechist, who has been
twelve years in New Zealand, thus writes : — ' Here
are a number of poor cannibals collected from the
different tribes around us, whose fathers were so rude,
so savage, that for ten years the first missionaries
lived among them, often expecting to be devoured by
them. A few years ago, they were ignorant of every
CHURCH MISSIONARY SOCIETY. 505
principle of religion ; had glutted in human blood,
and gloried in it ; but now there is not an individual
among them who is not in some degree acquainted
with the truths of the Christian religion. Not six
years ago they commenced with the very rudiments of
learning; now many of them can read and write
their own language with propriety, and are com-
pletely masters of the first rules of arithmetic. But
very few years ago a chisel made out of stone was
their only tool ; now they have not only got our tools,
but are learning to use them.'
" Mr. R. Davis thus writes from the same mission:
— c During the last quarter my time was principally
occupied in preparing agricultural implements, and
in attending to my natives employed about different
work — carpentering, sowing, fencing, taking up the
potato crop, and clearing land for the plough.' "
We next turn our attention to the testimony of
another labourer in the Christian field, who no less
strongly supports the preceding statements.
The Rev. John Beecham, of the WesJeyan Mis-
sionary Society, after expressing similar opinions to
those delivered by Mr. Coates, as to the sole efficacy
of Christianity in establishing and promoting refine-
ment and civilisation, with their attendant comforts,
and very clearly illustrating his idea by a reference
to ancient history, proceeds further to support his
sentiments by referring to the testimony of Kahke-
waquonaby,* a chief of the Chippeway Indians, whose
* The literal meaning of Kahkewaquonaby is " Sacred," or
506 THE REMEDY.
name has been subsequently changed into Peter
Jones. This tribe, notwithstanding their rejection of
the offers of Government made to induce them to
renounce their roving course of life, afterwards em-
braced the gospel when preached to them, and de-
voted themselves to the pursuits of civilized life.
Mr. Jones thus writes : — " The improvements
which the Christian Indians have made, have been the
astonishment of all who knew them in their pagan
state. The change for the better has not only extended
to their hearts and feelings, but also to their personal
appearance, and their domestic and social condition.
About ten years ago this people had no houses, no
fields, no horses, no cattle. Each person could carry
upon his back all that he possessed, without being
much burthened. They are now occupying about
forty comfortable houses, most of which are built of
hewn logs, and a few of frame, and are generally one
and a half story high, and about twenty-four feet long
and eighteen feet wide, with stone or brick chim-
neys ; two or three rooms in each house. Their fur-
niture consists of tables, chairs, bedsteads, straw mat-
tresses, a few feather beds, window curtains, boxes,
and trunks for their wearing apparel, small shelves
fastened against the wall for their books, closets for
their cooking utensils, cupboards for their plates,
knives and forks ; some have clocks and watches.
" Eagle's feathers;" the chief being of the Eagle tribe. He was
baptised by the name of Peter, and assumed the name of Jones
from bis sponsor.
WESLEYAN MISSIONARY SOCIETY. 507
They have no carpets, but a few have mats laid on
their floors. This tribe owns a saw.-mill, a workshop,
a blacksmith's shop, and a warehouse, the property
of the whole community. They have about 200
acres of land under cultivation, on which they grow
wheat, Indian corn, potatoes, &c. In their gardens
they raise vegetables of various kinds, and a few have
planted fruit trees. They have a number of oxen,
cows, horses, and pigs ; a few barns and stables ; a
few wagons and sleighs ; and all sorts of farming
implements.
" The gospel has of a truth now proved the
c savour of life unto life,' among our poor degraded
women. The men now make the houses, plant the
fields, provide the fuel and provisions for the house ;
the business of the women is to manage the house-
hold affairs. The females eat with the men at the
same table. You will be glad to hear that they are
not insensible to the great things the gospel has done
for them. I have often heard them expressing their
thanks to the Great Spirit for sending them mission-
aries to tell them the words of eternal life, which
have been the means of delivering them from a state
of misery and degradation."
The testimony of the Rev. William Ellis, secretary
of the London Missionary Society, is to the same
effect. " True civilization and Christianity," he ob-
serves, " are inseparable ; the former has never been
found but as a fruit of the latter." And he proceeds
to show with much force and perspicuity, the ineffi-
2l
508 THE REMEDY.
ciency of a mere demi- civilization to penetrate to the
root of human evil, and to lead to comfort and to
Christianity.
In the report of the London Missionary Society
for 1835, a comprehensive view is taken of the effects
produced by its labours in the South Sea Islands,
and which may serve as an illustration of the benign
and salutary influences of Christian truth, when per-
severingly pressed upon the acceptance of the most
barbarous people. The report observes,-—" Forty
years ago, when this society was formed, the islands
of the South Seas had been discovered, explored, and
abandoned, as presenting no objects worthy of fur-
ther regard. Their inhabitants were sunk still lower
in wretchedness by intercourse with foreigners, and
left a prey to the merciless idolatry that was fast
sweeping them from the face of the earth. To them
the attention of our venerable fathers in this cause
was first directed, and a mission was auspiciously
commenced. Idolatry was subverted, infant murder
and human sacrifices ceased, education was promoted,
converts flocked around the missionaries, churches
were gathered, missionary societies formed, and
teachers sent forth, Now, the people, fast rising in
the scale of nations, have, as fruits of the Divine
blessing on missionary perseverance, a Avritten lan-
guage, a free press, a representative government,
courts of justice, written laws, useful arts, and im-
proved resources. Commercial enterprise is pro-
moting industry and wealth, and a measure of do-
LONDON MISSIONARY SOCIETY, 509
mestic comfort, unknown to their ancestors, now per-
vades their dwellings. A nation has been born at
once, and surrounding nations have been blessed
through their mercy."
Testimonies of this kind might be multiplied to a
great extent. The annals of missionary proceedings
teem with information of the most conclusive cha-
racter, whilst the newly converted heathen them-
selves, ever ready to testify to the blessings they are
thus brought to enjoy, are heard to exclaim, " But
for our teachers, our grass on the hills, our fences
and houses, would have been lire ashes long ago ;
and we should have been upon the mountains
squeezing moss for a drop of water, eating raw roots,
and smothering the cries of our children by filling
their mouths with dirt, grass, or cloth." "We were
all blind till the bird flew across the great expanse
with the good seeds in its mouth, and planted them
among us. We now gather the fruit, and have con-
tinual harvest."
No less striking is the evidence of Andrew Stof-
fell, a converted Hottentot, before the Aborigines
Committee. He is asked, " Have the character and
condition of the Hottentots been improved since the
missionaries came among them., and in what re-
spects ?" He replies, cf The young people can now
read and write, and Ave all wear clothes; many of
us have learned trades, and we are altogether better
men. We have ploughing, wagon-makers, and
shoemakers, and other tradesmen, amongst us. We
2 l 2
510 THE REMEDY.
can make all those things, except a watch and a
coach. The missionaries have done much good, and
they have tamed the Hottentots."
The testimony of Mr. Eiisha Bates, who was a
member of the Society of Friends, before the same
Committee, furnishes the most convincing evidence
of the efficacy of Christianity in promoting the im-
provement of the temporal condition of savage
nations, even where other means had failed. He
observes, speaking of the Indians of the United
States, " Within the last few years we have had
occasion to review the whole course of our proceed-
ings, and Ave have come to the conclusion, from a
deliberate view of the past, that we erred in the plan
Avhich was originally adopted, in making civilization
the first object ; for we cannot count on a single indi-
vidual that we have brought to the full adoption of
Christianity." Having been further asked, " Do
your Society now regret that they did not begin with
Christianity, in order to lead the way to other advan-
tages ; and if you had to recommence the same under-
taking, would you now begin with Christianity ?" he
emphatically replied, " Decidedly Ave should, from a
full conviction that the attempt to civilize without
Christianity has failed ; and that the plan now
adopted is to make Christian instruction the primary
object."'
From these facts, gathered from different sources,
the inference does not appear by any means doubtful,
that whatever methods may be attempted for amelio-
MISCELLANEOUS TESTIMONIES. 511
rating the condition of untutored man, this alone can
penetrate to the root of the evil, can teach him to love
and to befriend his neighbour, and cause him to act
as a candidate for a higher and holier state of
being.
The hope, therefore, of effecting Africa's civiliza-
tion, and of inducing her tribes to relinquish the
trade in man, is, without this assistance, utterly vain.
This mighty lever, when properly applied, can alone
overturn the iniquitous systems which prevail
throughout that continent. Let missionaries and
schoolmasters, the plough and the spade, go together,
and agriculture will flourish ; the avenues to legiti-
mate commerce will be opened ; confidence between
man and man will be inspired; whilst civilization
will advance as the natural effect, and Christianity
operate as the proximate cause of this happy change.
If, indeed, it be true that such effects will follow
in the train of religion, and that Christianity alone
can effect such changes and produce such blessings,
then must we pause before we take a single step
without it. The cause of Africa involves interests far
too great, and results far too stupendous to be trifled
with. The destinies of unborn millions, as w T ell as
of the millions who now exist, are at stake in the
project; and the question is one of life or of death,
of comfort and happiness, or of unutterable misery.
I believe that Christianity will meet the necessities
of the case, and will prove a specific remedy for the
moral evils of Africa,
512 THE REMEDY.
My next proposition consequently is, that it is our
duty to apply this remedy if we can.
One part of our national debt to Africa has already
been acknowledged by the emancipation of our colo-
nial slaves. There remains yet, however, a larger
debt uncancelled,; — that of restitution to Africa itself.
We shall have much difficulty in ascertaining the
amount of this obligation. Had we the means of
discovering the total number of the sufferers whose
miseries we have caused, or could we form the faint-
est idea of the nature and extent of the woes which
are justly chargeable upon us as a nation, the duty
of making reparation to Africa would be obvious.
Next to the debt which we ourselves owe, I can
form no conception of a stronger argument in favour
of carrying thither civilization and Christianity, than
the existence of the Slave Trade itself, as it is found
at this day, attended, on the one hand, by desolation ;
on the other, by a blind and devouring superstition ;
and in all directions encircled by ferocity and carnage,
by torture, by terror, by all the evils through which
man can be afflicted ; and this variety of woes ending
in the annual sacrifice of 500,000 human beings.
I repeat, that a stronger proof we cannot have, that
it is the duty of the people of this empire to take up
the cause upon Christian grounds, as a measure of
atonement for the injuries we have done to her, as
the only means now within our power of making
restitution to her still degraded population ; and as
the most successful implement for uprooting from its
DEBT TO AFRICA, 513
very foundations that gigantic and accursed tree,
which for ages has nourished beneath its shadow
lamentation, and mourning, and woe.
Let but the people of this Christian country take
up this cause as a duty, nationally and religiously,
and no difficulties, however great, can, with the
Divine blessing, hinder its success.
Nationally and religiously, the duty is plain. We
have been put in trust with Christianity, — we have
been the depositaries of a pure and holy faith, which
inculcates the most expanded benevolence, and yet
have not only neglected, as a nation, to confer upon
Africa any real benefit, but have inflicted upon it a
positive evil. Covetousness has dimmed our moral
perceptions of duty, and paralysed our efforts, during
many generations; and now that the nation has
awakened from its lethargy, it is high time to act up
to the principles of our religion.
Africa still lies in her blood. She wants our mis-
sionaries, our schoolmasters, our bibles, all the ma-
chinery we possess, for ameliorating her wretched
condition. Shall we, with a remedy that may safely
be applied, neglect to heal her wounds ? Shall we,
on whom the lamp of life shines, refuse to disperse
her darkness ?
" If there be any consolation in Christ, if any com-
fort of love, if any fellowship of the spirit, if any
bowels of mercies,"*, we must awake to the duty,
amidst every difficulty, of freely and liberally distri-
* 1 Cor. vi. 9.
514 THE REMEDY.
buting to others those rich and abundant blessings
which have been entrusted to us.
I dwell no longer on the point of duty, but proceed
to prove that we can apply the remedy.
I have dwelt the longer on the facilities which
exist for the instruction of the natives, in order to
show that the attempt to raise negro intellect, and to
impart moral culture and religious instruction, is not
of that forlorn character which many suppose. The
facts I have stated are, I apprehend, sufficient to
show that there is, amongst the Africans, a capability
of receiving instruction ; that there are agents within
our reach, well calculated to assist in conferring it ;
that there is, in many parts at least, a thirst for edu-
cation, and a readiness to accept the services of mis-
sionaries ; and that, although the steps already taken
have been very few, there has been some little
advance. Other circumstances render the project of
sending instructors more feasible at the present than
at any former time. They will be carried to their
destination by water. British steamers will be upon
the Niger to protect them (at the only time that mis-
sionaries want protection) on their first settlement
among the natives. Missionaries find less difficulty
than any other class of persons, perhaps, in winning
the confidence of native tribes. The secret of their
success, is, the spirit of fair dealing, and the manifesta-
tion of upright and benevolent intentions, which they
carry with them. These speak to all men, but
especially to the uncivilised, in a language which
PRESENT TIME OPPORTUNE. 515
they accurately comprehend, and to which they freely
respond. It would seem, then, that the difficulties,
considered a few years ago insurmountable, in the
way of an attempt to diffuse intellectual, moral, and
religious knowledge amongst millions of the human
race, plunged in the very depths of ignorant supersti-
tion, have been in a great measure removed. Hence
it is evident, that the question is not so much as to
our power, but as to our willingness, to provide the
means of conferring the inestimable benefits of
intellectual advancement and true religion.
Having arrived at this point, it will naturally be
asked, what scheme of instruction do I propose ?
I answer, I hardly dare to propose any scheme.
Would that there were that charity among the Chris-
tians of the happier quarters of the world, Avhich
would induce them to lay aside their minor differ-
ences, in order to make a combined effort, of the
most determined and strenuous character, to pour
instruction upon Africa ! But if this unity be too
much and too good to be expected, we may at least
hope that every department of the Christian church
will separately press forward into that vast field
which will. I trust, speedily be opened, and where
there is room enough and need enough, physically
and morally, for all.*
* I have no fear that missionaries to Africa will be wanting
from our own country ; but it gives me satisfaction to find the
following passage in the South African Commercial Advertiser: —
'' It will be agreeable to all who can comprehend the grandeur of
516 THE REMEDY.
I may, however, recommend —
Firstly. That in every settlement formed on the
views here laid down, the religious, moral, and
industrial education of the natives should be con-
sidered an essential and fundamental object, claiming
the early and careful attention of the founders of such
settlement.
Secondly. That missionary societies should, by mu-
tual agreement, subdivide and apportion the parts of
this common field, so that each section of the Christian
church may have undisturbed possession of its own
sphere of labour.
Thirdly. That immediate arrangements should be
made by each for normal schools,* intended to rear
this opening prospect, to learn that the people of the United States
of America have determined to unite with the discoverers and
regenerators of Africa. In a private letter, addressed to a gentle-
man of this colony, which we have just seen, the writer, one of
the heads of a college in New Jersey, announces the deep interest
which this subject has already excited in that country ; and he
inquires, with an anxiety approaching to impatience, as to the
course their first missionaries should take, and the regions in
which they are likely to he most useful. Thirty students in that
college, he says, will be ready to start in a few months. At present
their views are chiefly directed to Central Africa. It is not im-
probahle, therefore, that they may follow the course of the newly-
opened Niger."
* I am happy to say that this suggestion is by no means a novel
one. In 1835, the Moravians contemplated a plan for establishing
an institution in Jamaica, " for training native missionaries and
teachers for needy Africa." The Rev. Hugh Stowcll has recently
proposed "an institution akin to Bishop's College, in the East
PLAN OF PROCEEDINGS. 517
not only native teachers of religion, but native arti-
zans 3 mechanics, and agriculturists, well instructed
for the purpose,'and themselves converts to Christianity.
Fourthly. That the African Civilization Society
now being instituted shall befriend and protect all who
are engaged in disseminating the truths of Christianity.
My object will be attained if two things are
effected, — if a spirit of harmony shall reign amongst
all who devote themselves to the benefit of Africa, —
and if, wherever channels of commerce are opened,
or agricultural locations made, there shall be put in
operation at the same moment a system of instruction
which shall raise up and send forth teachers of all
that Africa requires to learn.
Indies, where those of the liberated Africans and of their teeming
offspring who should give promise of distinguished piety and
talent might be educated as future missionaries to the land of
their forefathers." He goes on to say that, " without the services
of converted natives, humanly speaking, very extended success
cannot be anticipated. If, in other countries, this principle holds
good, how much more in the case of Africa. There the fatality
of the climate to European constitutions, the untamed savageness
of the interior tribes, and the multiplicity of their motley dialects,
present next to insuperable barriers to other than aboriginal
agency."
518
CHAPTER VII.
SPECIFIC STEPS TO BE TAKEN.
I have sufficiently explained what my object is.
It is the deliverance of Africa, by calling forth her
own resources. We contemplate that her popula-
tion, instead of being sold into Foreign Slavery, and
of perishing by tens of thousands in the process of
transportation, shall be employed in the tillage, and
in the commerce, which may be found at home.
In order to do this, we must
1st. Impede and discourage the Slave Traffic.
2ndly. Establish and encourage legitimate com-
merce.
3rdly. Promote and teach agriculture.
4thly. Impart moral and religious instruction.
To accomplish the first, we must
Increase and concentrate our squadron, and
make treaties with the chiefs of the coast, the
rivers, and the interior.
To accomplish the second, we must
Obtain commanding positions ; settle factories ;
and send out trading-ships.
To accomplish the third, we must
Set on foot an agricultural company.
Obtain, by treaty, lands for cultivation, with so
much power as may be necessary to keep
the slave-trader at a distance.
DUTY OF GOVERNMENT. 519
The territory we obtain should be freely offered
to us, without any kind of constraint.
It should be in the vicinity of some navigable
river.
The climate should be, for Africa, healthy.
The soil should be capable of growing- tropical
productions.
Its limits should be extensive.
To accomplish the fourth, we must
Support the benevolent association now esta-
blished.
Besides these special purposes, there is one general
object, which must be carefully provided for, viz. :
that the agents employed in Africa, whether on their
own account, or in connection with an association at
home ; whether engaged in commerce, cultivation,
or instruction, may be sufficiently protected.
Of the work to be done, a part belongs to the
Government, and a part must be executed by indi-
viduals.
The Government should
Take on itself the whole duty and expense of pre-
serving the peace, and of affording the neces-
sary protection, to new British settlements in
Africa.
Increase and concentrate our naval force.
Obtain Fernando Po, and such other com-
manding positions as may be found neces-
sary.
520 THE REMEDY.
Prepare, — instruct, — and send out embassies,
with all practicable dispatch, (or authorize
their African governors,) to form treaties, in-
cluding either, or all, of the following points,,
viz. : — Prevention of Slave-traffic ; — arrange-
ments for legitimate trade or cultivation, — with
such privileges and powers as may be neces-
sary for their well-doing ; and with grants of
land for cultivation.
The part which devolves on individuals interested in
the fate of Africa is, —
1st. Strenuously to assist the benevolent asso-
ciation already mentioned, the objects of
which are — to assist individuals or societies
who may engage themselves in the task of
educating the population of Africa ; — to pro-
mote by every means in its power, — direct
and indirect, — its civilization, cultivation, and
commerce ; to obtain and circulate statistical,
geographical, and all other information con-
cerning that country, especially availing itself
of the opportunity shortly to be presented of
doing so, by appointing agents to accompany
the expedition, which it is intended to send
out in the ensuing autumn; and, lastly, to
keep alive the interest of the people of Eng-
land on the subject.
2ndly. To form an agricultural company, which
shall, hereafter, send out persons well ac-
quainted with tropical climates and produc-
BENEVOLENT SOCIETY, ETC. 521
tions ; to form settlements, guided by such
arrangements and treaties as the Government
may have made ; to commence pattern farms
and establish factories, well supplied with Eu-
ropean goods ; in a word, to use all the means
that experience may point out, for a profit-
able and successful employment of British
skill and capital in the African continent. No
Slavery, no monopoly, forbearance towards
the natives, and utter enmity towards Slave
Trade and Slavery in all their forms, must
be the fundamental principles of such a com-
pany ; and an honest adherence to these will,
in my full belief, insure its prosperity and profit.
I have proposed two associations, a Benevolent
Society, which shall watch over and befriend the in-
terests of Africa, and a Company, which shall culti-
vate her soil. In one sense they are entirely sepa-
rate ; the object of the one is, charity, — of the other,
gain. As they are distinct in their principle, so, I
think, they ought to be kept entirely separate in the
prosecution of their details. Yet, it is impossible
that they should not subserve and benefit each other.
It is impossible to spread education, scientific know-
ledge, and the civilizing influence of Christianity,
without communicating that to the population, which
will most materially contribute to the advance of
commerce and agriculture : on the other hand, there
is no better way of advancing the moral and physical
condition of the people, than by the introduction of
522 THE REMEDY.
our skill, and the sagacious and successful employ-
ment of our capital amongst them.*
To the question which has already been repeatedly-
put to me, by those who have been moved to compas-
sion by the sorrows of Africa, What shall we do ?
my answer is, — Join the African Institution, which
we are endeavouring to revive ; and join the African
Agricultural Association, which we are about to esta-
blish.
* Statements and proposals of a more definite nature respect-
ing these two associations will, I trust, be laid before the public at
no distant day. In the mean time, it ma}' be well to observe, in
answer to the inquiry in what manner it is proposed to work land
in Africa, that it is intended that those employed as superintend-
ents should be, as far as possible, of negro extraction, but that
none should be sent but men of moral and religious character.
That such are to be had I have, I trust, shown in the Chapter on
the Elevation of Native Mind (page 491).
But in what species of agriculture is it proposed to employ
them ? In the first instance, perhaps, in the cultivation of cotton ;
on the facilities for which I have dwelt at some length (page 332) ;
but as we become better acquainted with Africa, we shall know
how to turn its cultivation to the best advantage, and of course we
shall grow those articles which will find the readiest and most
profitable market in the civilized world.
523
CONCLUSION.
I cannot close this work, without suggesting some
considerations, which, in the review I have taken of
the whole subject, have forcibly impressed themselves
on my own mind. Great as is the undertaking,
there are, at the present time, many concurrent and
favourable circumstances, which have not previously
existed.
England is at peace. Since the abolition of the
Slave Trade by Great Britain, it is not too much to
say, that there has been, both at home and amongst
many of the nations of the continent, an increase of
a benevolent and enlightened spirit. Our sincerity
with regard to the Slave Trade has been established,
by sacrifices which admit of no misconstruction.
The principles involved in that great measure have
been carried out by the abolition of slavery, and by
the willingness of the nation to pay the price of that
most costly act of duty. Thus, then, we are in a
condition (our own hands being clean) to ask the
co-operation of France, Russia, the United States,
and other great powers; and we have a right to
demand from Spain, Portugal, and Brazil that they
should no longer delay the execution of their en-
gagements.
Again, there are certain circumstances, which ren-
der Africa far more accessible than at any former
2 m
524 THE REMEDY.
period. We now know the course of the Niger,
and an entrance into the centre of Africa is opened,
by means of this noble river. We have now got, in
steam, a power which enables us to traverse it ; to
pass rapidly through the unhealthy parts of it;
to ascend it against the current ; in short, to com-
mand its navigation.
Beyond, and besides all these, there is another
circumstance lately brought into existence which
may supply us with the necessary agents capable of
enduring: the African climate. I wish not, with too
sanguine an eye, to anticipate the course of events,
but I cannot help believing, as I have elsewhere
stated, that in the present condition of the negro
race in our West Indian colonies lies one of the
best hopes of Africa. They are rising, under the
influence of freedom, education, and religion, to a
rank, which will fit them to be messengers of peace
to the land from which their fathers were torn ; and
already, though the time has been so short, various,
distinct, and unconcerted symptoms have appeared,
proving that " it pitieth them to see her in the dust."
At the moment, then, that a highway is discovered
into the heart of Africa, and that a new power is
placed in our hands enabling us to command its
navigation, and that agents present themselves quali-
fied by physical constitution to endure the climate,
and by intellectual cultivation to carry with them
the seeds of true improvement ; at that moment, we
learn the utter fallacy and inutility of the system for
CONCLUSION. 525
the suppression of the Slave Trade which we have
hitherto been pursuing.
But there is another consideration, though quite
of a different order, which bears strongly upon this
point. New markets for the sale of our manufac-
tured articles are urgently required, at a time when
we are excluded from some of our accustomed chan-
nels of sale.
Nor is the supply of the raw material less impor-
tant ; new fields for its growth ought to be opened,
in proportion to the increasing consumption of the
world. I firmly believe that, if commercial coun-
tries consulted only their true interests, without re-
ference to motives of a higher character, they would
make the most resolute and persevering attempts to
raise up Africa — not to divide her broad territory
amongst them, nor to enslave her people, but in order
to elevate her into something like an equality with
themselves, for their reciprocal benefit.
But I am well aware that it is a case in which we
must act under circumstances of considerable dis-
couragement ; and especially that of our great igno-
rance with regard to the real internal condition of
Africa, both physical and moral.
Upon any other subject, the dimness of our know-
ledge would supply an unanswerable reason for
pausing; but the state of Africa admits no delay.
The complicated horrors which are crowded into the
space of a single month, furnish sufficient reasons for
all possible dispatch, and for adventuring on mea-
2m 2
526 THE REMEDY.
sures, which, under other circumstances, would be
premature and probably rash. Better to fall into a
thousand errors in the detail, and to incur the ex-
pense and mortification of the miscarriages they will
cause, than to sit still, and leave Africa to her woeful
fate.
If nothing be done, Africa will be at the end of
50 or 100 years what she now is, and we shall still be
as ill-informed, as we now are, of the readiest means
for her relief. But if we grapple with the evil, we
shall either find ourselves in the right road, or grope
our way to it ; and the very mistakes we now make
will serve to direct us aright hereafter.
I am not so sanguine as to suppose that we can
at once, by a single effort, solve the problem which
lies before us. The deliverance of Africa will put
our patience and perseverance to no ordinary trial.
We must deliberately make up our minds to large
and long-continued expense, to persevering labours,
and to severe disappointments. I wish not in
any degree to conceal from myself, or from others,
these truths.
But the question is,— Shall such an experiment be
made ? There are two mighty arguments which
should prompt us to such an undertaking : the in-
tense miseries of Africa, and the peculiar blessings
which have been showered upon this country by the
mercy of Divine Providence. With regard to the
first, I need not again plunge into the sickening
details of the horrors which accompany this bloody
CONCLUSION. 527
trade, and of the sanguinary rites, which there bear
the name of religion. Whether we look to the vast
space which, is there made a theatre of public misery,
or calculate how many deeds of cruelty and carnage
must be perpetrated every day in the year, in order
to make up the surprising total of human distress,
which, by indisputable documents, we know to be
realized, there is enough to awaken the deepest pity,
and to arouse the most energetic resolution.
Turning to the second consideration, we cannot
fail to see how signally this nation has been pre-
served, and led forward to an extent of power and
prosperity, beyond what almost any other nation has
been permitted to reach. "It is not to be doubted
that this country has been invested with wealth and
power, with, arts and knowledge, with the sway of
distant lands, and the mastery of the restless waters,
for some great and important purpose in the govern-
ment of the world. Can we suppose otherwise than
that it is our office to carry civilization and hu-
manity, peace and good government, and, above all,
the knowledge of the true God, to the uttermost end
of the earth?"*
Since that passage was written, Great Britain has
refuted the idle, yet once the all but universal doc-
trine, that confusion, havoc, and bloodshed must
follow the extinction of slavery. And with this
doctrine of universal convulsion has also fallen the
* The Rev. Mr. Whewell's Sermon before the Trinity Board.
528 THE REMEDY.
allegation, that negroes will not work, except under
the impulse of the whip. It is confessed by every
authority, that wages have charmed away what used
to be called "the natural and incurable indolence of
the African.'- I do not say a single word here upon
the controverted question, whether the negroes de-
mand excessive remuneration. We may assume, for
the sake of argument, that they are exorbitant. This
may be a fault, though, under all the circumstances,
not an unnatural or surprising one ; but this does not
touch my assertion, grounded upon all the papers which
have been produced to Parliament, that, when satis-
fied with the rate of wages, they do labour indus-
triously, and execute more work, in better style, and
in less time, than when they were slaves. There
never was a greater delusion, than that negroes
could not be induced to work for money.
A nobler achievement now invites us. I believe
that Great Britain can, if she will, under the favour
of the Almighty, confer a blessing on the human race.
It may be that at her bidding a thousand nations now
steeped in wretchedness, in brutal ignorance, in de-
vouring superstition, possessing but the one trade, and
that one the foulest evil that ever blighted public pros-
perity, or poisoned domestic peace, shall, under Bri-
tish tuition, emerge from their debasement, enjoy a
long line of blessings — education, agriculture, com-
merce, peace, industry, and the wealth that springs
from it; and, far above all, shall willingly receive that
religion which, while it confers innumerable tempo-
CONCLUSION. 529
ral blessings, opens the way to an eternal futurity of
happiness.
I have already confessed that I am not experienced
or skilful in matters which touch the commercial part
of the question. I tread this ground with diffidence.
I say no more, than that it appears to me that the soil
in Africa being rich, and the people being found upon
it, it is not advisable to carry them to a distance. It is
possible, however, that some fallacy, unsuspected by
me, may lurk under my theory, if theory of mine it
can be called ; but when I come to humanity, jus-
tice, and the duties of Christian men, I stand upon
a rock. It may be, or it may not, that while we act
under the impulse of charity to the most afflicted of
mankind, we are also obeying the dictates of the
most far-sighted policy, and the most refined ambi-
tion. It may prove, or it may not, that while we are
leading Africa to grow at home, cheaper sugar than
Brazil, and cheaper cotton than the United States,
we are renovating the very sinews of our national
strength. Be this as it may, without doubt it is the
duty of Great Britain to employ the influence and
the strength which God has given her, in raising
Africa from the dust, and enabling her, out of her
own resources, to beat down Slavery and the Slave
Trade.
I am aware that it is quite a different question
whether the means I propose are practicable, and
likely to be crowned with success. It belongs to the
nation to consider whether the suggestions now
530 THE REMEDY.
offered, and the policy which I have ventured to re-
commend, are likely to eradicate that mighty evil
which desolates Africa, degrades Europe, and afflicts
humanity. If it shall appear that my views are not
chimerical, — that they have some grounds of reason in
themselves, and are fortified by a great mass of evi-
dence of a practical nature,— and if it shall appear
that, whether we look to the great interests of huma-
nity, or consult the prosperity and honour of the Bri-
tish empire, it is our duty to proceed, undeterred by
difficulty, peril, or expense, — then I trust that steps
will be taken boldly and rapidly, for the accomplish-
ment of th e obj ect .
But if it shall appear that this, and every other
plan is likely to be futile, or, if the Government shall
not feel itself justified in braving the difficulties and
expense which will be required, then must I express
my painful conviction, that it would be better for the
interests of humanity that we should withdraw alto-
gether from the struggle ; — better to let the planters
of America satiate themselves with their victims,
than to interpose our efforts, unavailing in reducing
the magnitude of the evil, while they exasperate the
miseries which belong to it, — better to do nothing than
to go on, year after year, at great cost, adding to the
disasters, and inflaming the wounds of Africa. But I
cannot contemplate such a result, — I must hope better
things.
The case is now fairly laid before the nation. It
belongs to no individual, to no party, — it is a distinct
CONCLUSION. 531
and isolated question. My desire has been to lay
it upon the national conscience of Great Britain.
There I must leave it ; having fully stated what I be-
lieve to be the only remedy, and the best means of
applying that remedy.
I find, in the sacred writings, a faithful picture of
sorrows, — such as those with which Africa is now
afflicted ; but I find also annexed to that description
a prophetic promise, which we must fervently desire
to see realised to miserable Africa : —
" Thus saith the Lord of Hosts, — Before these days
there was no hire for man, nor any hire for beast :
neither was there any peace to him that went out, or
came in, because of the affliction : for I set all men,
every one against his neighbour.
" But now I will not be unto the residue of this
people as in the former days, saith the Lord of
Hosts.
" For the seed shall be prosperous ; the vine shall
give her fruit, and the ground shall give her increase,
and the Heavens shall give their dews : and I will
cause the remnant of this people to possess all these
things."
532
APPENDIX A.
On Facilities of making Treaties.
The following instances may prove the disposition of the
native chiefs to form connexions with us : —
Sir Charles MacCarthy, in giving an account of the
negotiations for taking possession of the Isles de Loss,
states, that the treaty " was made with great facility, with-
out drunkenness or bribery *." In 1826 the king of
Barra ceded to Great Britain, by treaty, a tract of land on
the northern shore of the Gambia, 36 miles in length, by one
in breadth, for 400 Spanish dollars yearly ; all slave-trad-
ing to be finally prohibited. In 1827 the king of Combo
guaranteed to the British crown rights nearly amounting to
sovereignty over his dominions, extending about 30 miles
along the southern bank of the river, and 10 miles along
the coast, and from 10 to 15 miles in breadth, with the
prohibition of the Slave Trade, for an annual payment of
100 dollars.
Treaties with the king of Bulola and Biafra, made by
Sir Neil Campbell, cede the sovereignty of those districts,
and a right on the part of Great Britain to establish forts or
factories, with clauses for the abolition of the Slave Trade.
From the Pongas and Nunez rivers, little or no produce,
* Mr. Hutton, acting governor at the Gambia, effected an arrangement
with the chief of Contalacunda, which being deemed a place of importance
by our merchants, he did not consider 50 dollars annually (about 10/.) ill
bestowed in securing its chief's friendship.
APPENDIX A. 533
except slaves, is exported. In 1827, Sir N. Campbell saw
the chiefs of these rivers, and obtained " the cession of the
most commanding points up the mouth of each." Mr.
Hutton states, in 1829, that he made a treaty with the king
of Woolli at Fattatenda, and obtained the full sovereignty
of that town, with stipulations in favour of our commerce,
for the payment in merchandise of 200 dollars annually.
He also made a treaty with the king of Bondou, and ob-
serves, " The object of 300 or 400 dollars is trifling, com-
pared with the advantage that would result from such a
connexion with both these kings, whose influence extends
not only through the whole of Bondou and Woolli, but also
to the adjoining countries of Shendrum and Tanda, cele-
brated for gold, gum, &c." Though we have not availed
ourselves of these openings, — though the payments to the
chiefs were soon suspended, — some benefit seems to have
been derived from these engagements. Rev. T. W. Fox, a
Wesleyan missionary, as appears from his journal in my
possession, paid a visit to Woolli in 1837, and urged upon
the king the benefits of Christianity : " He," says Mr. Fox,
" listened attentively, appeared pleased, and said that was
what he wanted; and if I would come and sit down on his
ground, he would give me as much land as I wished, and
his own children to be educated." I replied, " That if I
sent a missionary, I hoped he would protect him, and not
allow anybody to trouble him ;" Koy (the king) answered,
" that he belonged to white man, and that if Tobaba fodey
(the white priest) came to sit down in his kingdom, nobody
should, or would, trouble him." He also said, "he hoped
God would preserve me ; the object I had in view was very
good."
The king of Bondou, also, whom Mr. Fox likewise visited
in 1838, offered to give him ground for a settlement, and
said, " They were all glad to see him, and they loved him
534 APPENDIX A.
very much, because he was a good man." It is something
in the present disastrous condition of Africa, that there is
a good feeling towards the British, and no rooted indisposi-
tion to listen to their agents.
In 1827, the king and head men of Brekama solicited
Sir N.Campbell to take them under British protection:
they stipulated to renounce the Slave Trade, and to enter
into no wars, in return for British alliance, " and four pieces
of baft annually."
Governor Rendall gives a list of 19 kings or chiefs, on
the northern and 20 on the southern, bank of the Gambia,
with whom we have some intercourse or connexion. The
total sum annually divided amongst these, for rents and pro-
pitiatory presents, reaches only 300Z. This liberality is
not without its effect. Governor Rendall reports 751. spent
in presents to chiefs and head men, on both banks of the
river, between Bathurst and Woolli, and says, " This ex-
penditure has not been in vain, as I have received intelli-
gence that the war in Carbo, which has lasted 12 years, is
finally settled, both parties having taken my advice, and
called in umpires to decide their difference: the paths
through Carbo and Footah-Jallow will now be open to the
river, by which a great influx of trade must take place."
Besides the tribes lying immediately on the Gambia, Gover-
nor Rendall says, that " messengers are often received at
Bathurst from the kings of Boaul and Cayor, to the north-
ward of Bondou; Cassan, and Kaarta-Bambarra, to the
eastward ; and the Almanez of Footah-Jallow, to the south-
east." I am aware that no definite ideas can be derived
from this catalogue of barbarous chiefs : we have, however,
evidence sufficient to show that the soil is fertile, and suited
to tropical productions ; that the forests are full of maho-
gany and valuable woods, and that the country yields gold :
hence we may justly infer, that from a territory so extensive,
APPENDIX A. 535
for which natvire has clone so much, there is a capability of
large cultivation, and of considerable commerce. The
Commissioners of Inquiry sent out to that country in 1827,
report thus, — " When the magnitude of the river Gambia,
and the various countries through which it takes its course
are duly considered, it will probably be concluded that,
with capital and enterprise, its trade may be increased to a
considerable extent ;" they add, and I entirely unite
with them in the opinion, " Great as the advantages, in
this point of view, which it presents, they can never be
completely available, without the establishment of a more
intimate and friendly intercourse with the natives of the
country." Following the coast, we come to the Portuguese
settlements of Cacheo and Bissao ; and then to a belt of
Slave-dealing states, extending to the Congo, and blocking
out legitimate commerce from the interior. Here, however,
we have some claims, of which we have not availed our-
selves. The fine little island of Bulama, in the estuary of
the Rio Grande, belongs to Great Britain : it is unoccupied ;
and, in 1826, Governor Macaulay recommended that libe-
rated Africans should be located there. I find, in Captain
Beaver's " African Memoranda," the following report of the
cession of this island to us : — " The original purchase of
the island of Bulama, made by Captain Beaver in 1792,
was effected without any difficulty; though, on the first
arrival of the English, they had offended the natives by
cutting wood without permission, and in the quarrel which
ensued, some lives had been lost." When Captain Beaver
entered into a palaver with the two kings of Canabac,
touching the purchase of their hunting island of Bulama,
one of them, while he attributed the affray to our taking
the liberty to help ourselves, without any leave from the
native authorities, expressed his desire to treat with us
amicably on fair terms. He said, " He was sorry for what
536 APPENDIX A.
had happened, but that then they neither knew who we
were, nor what were our intentions : we were strangers, and
we took their land." Being, however, convinced of the
pacific and just dispositions of the English, and of the great
reciprocal benefits that were likely to result from an Euro-
pean colony established in their neighbourhood, they readily
made over the sovereignty and possession of the said island
to the king of Great Britain, for 473 bars of goods (about
78/. 16,?. 8d.)
Two chiefs on the mainland afterwards put in a claim for
a part of the price ; and Captain Beaver, having ascertained
that " there was some justice in these people's claims," wisely
satisfied them, and bought their concurrence in the cession
of the island, together with a still larger tract on the main-
land, for goods, the cost price of which he estimated at
25/. las. Id. There were some further charges for Euro-
pean agency in these transactions.*
Captain Beaver, at all events, did not apprehend that
there was any difficulty in his time in obtaining any extent
of territory on reasonable terms : for he proposes to the
Government, that they should purchase between the
Gambia and the Rio Grande a tract of 18,000,000 of acres,
which, in his opinion, might be bought for 5000/., or less.
* See the copy of these treaties in Johansen's "Account of Bulama and
the Bulam Association," pp. 28, 29.
537
APPENDIX B.
Vide Page 34.
Abstract of a Letter written in 1835, relative to Fer-
nando Po.
This island belongs to Spain, and was formerly called
" Formosa," or the beautiful island, a designation it well de-
serves. It has three ranges of hills running parallel with the
north-east side of it, the centre one rising into a mountain of
about 10,000 feet in height. After some negotiation be-
tween the governments of England and Spain, it was agreed
in 1827, that the former might place an establishment on
the island for the purpose of locating upon it such negroes
as might be captured, and emancipated, under the Slave
Trade Abolition Treaties, and a governor was sent from hence,
and various buildings were erected; but some difficulties
arising, in consequence of the Spanish Crown refusing to
transfer the sovereignty of the island, it was abandoned,
after the outlay of a considerable sum. This termination of
the negotiation is most deeply to be lamented, as the island,
in the hands of Great Britain, would prove a most important
and valuable possession as regards her commerce ; but it
would be still more important to the civilization of Africa,
forming, as it does, the key to the centre of that vast conti-
nent, and in this view, to the philanthropist, its occupation by
the British Crown would be invaluable, as the prepossession
of the natives on the opposite coast (from which it is distant
only a few miles) in favour of the English, over all other na-
tions, is very remarkable : but to any maritime trading na-
538 APPENDIX 3.
tion, it would prove a valuable acquisition. The Americans
have already shown a desire for opening a trade with it, and
in 1834 one or two vessels were engaged in whaling there.
On the northern end of the island there is a very fine
bay, where the different points of land form an inner and
outer anchorage, and where from 400 to 500 vessels might
ride in all the months of the year in complete security. The
facilities for discharging and taking on board their cargoes
are also very great, as they may lie in three or four fathoms
of water w T ithin 40 or 50 feet, of the shore, the depth increas-
ing greatly at every additional few feet : it is remarkable, too,
that these seas are not visited by the hurricanes so preva-
lent on other parts of the coast, and that even the tornadoes
are less violent than elsewhere. These advantages, joined to
its immediate vicinity to the great rivers which penetrate to
the heart of Africa, render it unnecessary to say a word to
enforce the desirableness of its becoming an English pos-
session. At the period when the island was abandoned a
town had been laid out at the head of the bay, a consider-
able number of houses had been built, and a good drainage
cut through each street. The population, then amounting
to about 700 persons, w r ere in a flourishing condition,
being constantly employed in cutting timber, building, and
cultivation, and the town was bidding fair to become one of
the most — perhaps the most — important on the coast. The
native population, in its immediate vicinity, was estimated at
between 500 and 600 persons, whose ready submission to
the English government gave every facility to the progres-
sive improvement of the new colony : they looked up to the
whites, and readily received instruction in the schools which
were established, and they attended church with great re-
gularity and decency on the Sundays — on which days they
came into the town in great numbers.
The island produces, in rich abundance, palm-oil, cocoas,
APPENDIX B. 539
plantains, and yams ; and it is covered with a vast variety
of trees, many of them of the most useful qualities : there
are whole forests of palms, and many different kinds of
trees which would be valuable for cabinet work ; but, in
a commercial point of view, the most important amongst
its timber trees, and in which it also abounds, is that which
is peculiarly adapted for ship-building, and which may be pro-
cured of almost all lengths. Several ships, both belonging
to the government and to merchants, have been repaired
with it at the island, and many cargoes have been imported
into England, and used in the king's and merchants' yards.
The palm-tree is invaluable to the negroes, who use palm-
wine as a beverage. The soil is so rich, that no limits can be
assigned to its productiveness : it is capable of producing
almost every luxury in the vegetable world for the use of
man and beast.
Much has been urged in favour of, and also against, the
climate of this island ; but when the timber, with which it
abounds, is felled, — and this, if the island were occupied by
the British, would be constantly progressing, as it is, as has
been already stated, of a very valuable kind, — there can
scarcely be a doubt that it would become, ere very long, the
Madeira of the western coast : as almost any degree of tem-
perature may be obtained on the different ranges of its moun-
tains ; and the vegetables of the temperate as well as of the
tropical climates, flourish in its soil, which is extremely fertile.
The water, too, is pure and abundant ; game is plentiful, and
its coasts swarm with fish. It is a fact well established,
that, in plains in tropical climates where fever exists at a
temperature of from 80° to 90°, it is not found on the neigh-
bouring mountains, where at noon the thermometer does not
range higher than from 70° to 75°.
2 N
540 APPENDIX B.
Extract of a Letter from another Gentleman, dated Cla-
rence, Fernando Po, May, 1835.
"■ We anticipate with much anxiety the (we trust not very
far distant) period, when this establishment will be again
resumed by our government : for, on investigation into the
real state of the colony, it must necessarily take place, and
then prejudices will surely give way, and truth prevail over
the false representations, through which, one of the most
beautiful and profitable spots in Africa has been so injudi-
ciously abandoned. Indeed, I can, in addition to its beauty
and great utility to British trade in Western Africa, safely
say, that; in point of salubrity, if not more so, it is at all
events equal to any other British settlement on the coast.
" Since 's departure, we have drawn up our militia,
and designated it ' The Clarence Militia Corps,' and I feel
great pleasure in stating, that, considering the short period
the men have been under arms, and their natural awkward-
ness at first, I should not be ashamed to welcome the Com-
mander-in-chief with a captain's guards whenever Admiral
Campbell will deign to honour us with a visit.
" Our little town of Clarence has also undergone some
alterations and improvements ; the town, which formerly laid
scattered in the midst of a forest of plantains and bananas,
has been brought in nearer to the cove, and properly laid out ;
the streets are made broad, and cut each other at right angles,
on either side of which are the houses and allotments, of
equal dimensions : so, that in what street soever you may be,
instead of the suffocating atmosphere that formerly assailed
one, you now enjoy a cool and refreshing current of air, which
must certainly be conducive to health, and justify our anti-
cipating even healthy wet seasons.
" While we go on thus improving among ourselves, I do
not despair of working a complete revolution in the manners
APPENDIX C. 541
and habits of the aborigines, who are rapidly becoming
inhabitants among us, and are already beginning to adopt
our customs; assume a more active and industrious cha-
racter; and supply us with much greater quantities of
palm-oil than formerly."
APPENDIX C.
Copy of a Despatch from General Twner to Earl Bathurst.
Dated Sierra Leone, January 25th, 1826.
" It is found that, under this system of putting them (the
liberated Africans) to easy and regular labour such as they
have been used to, on their landing from slave-ships, they
become very orderly good labourers ; but in the cases where
they have been located in the villages, and have received
gratuitous maintenance, they can, with difficulty, be induced
to give a day's labour for good wages.
" It would but lead to disappointment to imagine that a
large mass of poor ignorant people, without capital, skill, or
industry, could be brought to maintain themselves, and to
raise articles of export, without the assistance of labour-
wages. Could such a system succeed even in England, the
poor rates might soon be abolished."
General Turner further says, that if men of colour who
understand the cultivation of cotton and coffee, were brought
from the West Indies, to superintend such plantations as
would not fail under such facilities to be formed by
capitalists, he is satisfied much would be done in a few
years for the improvement of the country.*
* Parliamentary Papers, Sierra Leone, p. 7, Session 1830, No. 57.
2n2
512 APPENDIX C.
Copy of a Despatch from Lieutenant- Colonel Denham,*
General Superintendent of the Liberated African De-
partment.
Dated Sierra Leone, May 2\st, 1827.
" What this colony, or rather the liberated Africans, have
felt the most want of is, instruction, capital, and example :
with the very little they have had of either, conveyed in a
manner likely to benefit them generally, it is to me, daily,
an increasing subject of astonishment, that the liberated
Africans settled here have done so much for themselves as
they have.
c< I have not observed any disinclination for voluntary
labour : it appears to be a system perfectly understood and
practised by the liberated Africans here ; and strengthens
with their strength, as they become more sensible of the sweets
of labour, by enjoying the profits of it, and the comforts
those profits enable them to purchase : indeed, to the many
hundreds of liberated Africans that have been employed as
labourers on the different Government works, as well as on
the buildings erected by private individuals, during the last
few years, may in some measure be attributed the compara-
tively small number of agricultural labourers in the villages.
" Labourers' wages have varied from 1,?. to 6d. per day :
yet has there never been a deficiency of liberated Africans,
who were willing to labour for hire. On the Naval Stores,
now erecting by contract on King Tom's Point, are nearly
200 liberated African labourers, who work well and steadily,
at 20,y. per month, one-half paid in money, and the re-
mainder in goods taken from the stores of the merchants
who have the contract.
" The period of labour also forms a longer portion of the
day here than even in the South of Europe, where for se-
* The celebrated African traveller, ami eventually Governor of Sierra
Lcoue.
APPENDIX C. 543
veral hours, when the sun has most power, a general cessa-
tion of labour, or indeed employment, takes place. La-
bourers in this colony work from six in the morning till five
in the afternoon, constantly, with the exception of the hour
from nine till ten, which they are allowed for breakfast.
" Husbandry and practical agriculture should be en-
couraged by every possible means ; but yet I am inclined to
think the kind of labour in which so many of the liberated
Africans have been and still are employed, has been upon
the whole beneficial to them : they must acquire intelligence,
habits of regularity, and steady labour, with much general
knowledge, by being employed with artificers, and watch-
ing the progress of the public buildings from the foundatio
to the roof, — the roof, to the finished whole, — as in the case
of the extensive Barracks, and a very handsome building
intended for the Naval stores, which are both nearly com-
pleted.
" They are already sensible of the rewards of industry,
by being in possession of the profits ; and the advantage of
property is becoming daily an increased object of interest.
" An anxious desire to obtain and enjoy the luxuries of
life is apparent in every village, from the oldest settler to
the liberated African of yesterday. European articles of
dress are the first objects of their desire, and for the means
of acquiring these both sexes will cheerfully labour ; and a
gradual improvement has taken place in their dwellings, as
they become possessed of the necessary means for that pur-
pose. Of the practicability of introducing free labour
amongst the liberated Africans settled here, I have not the
slightest doubt, nor do I believe they would work half as
well in any other way, unless the greatest cruelty should be
exercised towards them.
" My opinion on this subject is formed from facts, collected
during an actual residence in each of the settlements of
544 APPENDIX C.
liberated Africans, of from one to three weeks, and I shall
merely state those facts, as I consider them better than any
reasoning. The number of frame-houses with stone founda-
tions, and also stone houses, has increased in all the villages,
particularly the mountain ones of Gloucester and Regent.
Three sold during the last three years at Wellington. There
are seven stone houses nearly finished, all begun during the
last two years. The owners of these habitations, which cost
them from 100 to 200 dollars, have all acquired the means
of so permanently establishing themselves, by free labour
and industry : they were all, with the exception of a few dis-
charged soldiers from the Fourth West India Regiment,
landed from the ships here after capture, and merely given
a lot of ground and rations for a time : they became masons,
carpenters, coopers, smiths, and farmers.
" The markets at Freetown are supplied with fruit and
vegetables, almost exclusively, by the mountain villages ; and
from 80 to 100 men, women, boys, and girls, are to be seen
daily on the hill leading to Gloucester town, with the pro-
duce of their farms and gardens. This is also entirely the re-
ward of their own industry and perseverance, for not the
least instruction on this important branch of labour have they
ever received."*
Major Ricketts in a despatch, dated June 30th, 1829,
speaking of the produce raised by the liberated Africans,
says : —
" The value of these articles may be estimated by the
well-known fact, that a labouring man can go into the mar-
ket and purchase as much food for a penny-halfpenny as
will suffice for two meals. Some of the persons supplying the
market are known to travel from Waterloo and Hastings,
the former being 22, and the latter 16 miles from Freetown,
carrying their produce in baskets on their heads. This kind
* Papers relative to Sierra Lcono, September, 1830, No. 57. p. 15 — 17.
APPENDIX D. 545
of industry clearly manifests the desire the liberated Afri-
cans have to labour voluntarily, to enable them, by honest
means, to become possessed of those luxuries, which they see
their more wealthy brethren enjoying."*
APPENDIX D.
Playford Hall, 17th July, 1839.
My Dear Friend,
Having read your little book, bearing the name of " The
Remedy," I congratulate you on having at last discovered
a way, winch if followed up in all its parts, would most cer-
tainly lead to the abolition of that execrable traffic called
the Slave Trade.
Two of the measures which you hold forth to accomplish
this object, are the employment of steamers in conjunction
with sailing vessels, and the annexation of the island of
Fernando Po to our foreign possessions. Simple and in-
significant as the means may at first sight appear, they will
be decisive in their consequences, and fully answer the end
as far as the capture and destruction of slave-vessels are
concerned. Steamers, it is obvious, will come up with these,
at times and seasons, when our best sailing ships cannot
touch them, and Fernando Po is a station, in the sight of
which eight-tenths of the existing slaves must pass to be
carried on. Commodore Bullen, whom you have quoted,
says, " that if a look-out be kept from the shore of this bay,
(in Fernando Po) scarcely a vessel could leave the Bonny,
Calabars, Bimbia, and Camaroon rivers, without being
observed time enough to signalize to any vessel lying in the
bay to intercept her;" and he cites as an instance the cap-
ture of a slaver Le Daniel by his own vessel. This capture
* Papers relative to Sierra Leone, September, 1830, No. 57, p. 39.
546 APPENDIX D-
was effected within four hours after first seeing her, although
his vessel was then lying at anchor in the bay. Taking in
these three happy circumstances together, the employment of
steamers, the vicinity of Fernando Po to the coast, and that the
island commands a sight of eight-tenths of the Slave Trade
now carried on, I cannot doubt that ten vessels would be
captured where one was taken before. I verily believe that
our cruisers would make such havoc among the slave vessels
in three months, that when the news of what they had done
should reach Cuba, Brazil, &c., the insurance there would
be raised to a frightful amount, and merchants begin to
query, whether it would be advisable to send any more
adventures to that part of the coast. So far for the first
three months ; but after this, other vessels would be on their
way to the Niger, ignorant of what had happened, and
would share the same fate. Here a fresh report of captures
would be communicated to the people of Brazils, Cuba, &c,
and what effect would this produce there? No insurance
at any rate ! No heart to venture again in this trade ! And
here I cannot help stating the benefit that Fernando Po
would be to the slaves who should be captured on these
occasions : instead of being carried to Sierra Leone, as
heretofore, many of them in a diseased state, a voyage of
five or six weeks, during which a prodigious loss of life has
occurred, they would be landed there in health in three or
four days, some of them in a few hours, where they would
be liberated, and set to work, and earn their own main-
tenance immediately. I have been writing hitherto under
the supposition that we are at liberty to take vessels of this
description bearing the Portuguese flag. It is said that a
treaty is on foot for that purpose with Portugal, but if that
should fail, existing treaties would bear us out in the cap-
ture of such vessels.
But supposing these two measures should be successful,
APPENDIX D. 547
as you think they would be, in putting an end to the Slave
Trade, what do you recommend next ? You recommend
that a new trade should be proposed to the natives in
exchange for that of the Slave Trade, in the productions of
their soil ; that is, by means of agriculture, by which their
wants, and more than their usual wants, would be supplied,
so that when the new trade should come fairly into play,
they would find, practically find, that it was more than a
compensation for the old; and that the rise of this new
trade should immediately follow the downfall of the Slave
Trade. But how is this new trade to be brought about ?
You answer by treaties with the native chiefs : by subsidies
to some of them, which, though they would be important,
would be of trifling amount ; by purchasing land, which,
though extensive, would be attended with little cost ; by
introducing settlements among them, by which their in-
dustry would be directed to the proper objects of cultivation,
and that cultivation improved by our skill ; by which their
youth would be educated, their manners and habits civil-
ized, and the gospel be widely spread among them.
There is no doubt that if all these things could be accom-
plished, not only the Slave Trade would be abolished, but
the natives would never wish to return to it. Now you
have shown by historical proofs that all these things have
been already done in many instances in different parts of
Africa, and that the results have been highly favourable,
and this, without any particular pains being taken, except
at Sierra Leone ; in fact, without any but ordinary sthrmlus
being given, the natives being left to their own will and
pleasure, and without any other incitement than the pro-
tection which a settlement in this vicinity afforded them,
and a simple declaration, " that they should be paid for
their labour." What would be the case then, were a great
company established in England, whose constant object
548 APPENDIX D.
would be to excite their energies by the prospect of a suit-
able reward, and by instructing them how to earn it ?
Let us now see what these historical proofs are (and I
shall quote from them very briefly) on which you place so
much reliance. Sierra Leone offers itself for consideration
first. You say that " the accounts, soon after the settle-
ment was formed there, stated that the natives crowded round
the colony, both for education and for trade, and that the
beneficial effect upon them in inducing them to quit slave
trading, was instantaneous. That effect has been continued,
and has extended in the neighbourhood of Sierra Leone to
a very considerable distance round the colony. Traders
bring down ivory, gold-dust, and palm oil as usual. Of
late years a very important branch has been added to the
legal trade for the cutting of timber for the British Navy,
&c. &c.
The river Gambia presents itself next. " In the year
1814," says Mr. Bandinel, " a colony was formed at St.
Mary's on this river. This colony has increased and
flourished beyond all reasonable calculation, and is already
more 'powerful and wealthy than any of those 1 older settle-
ments of the British in Africa, which were formed for the
purpose of promoting the Slave Trade." — " The beneficial
effects of this settlement at St. Mary's on all the tribes along
the banks of the Gambia, are perhaps still more prominent
than those which have taken place round Sierra Leone."
In the year 1833, a mission in connexion with the
Wesleyan Society was established at Mac Carthy's island.
" Before the abolition of the Slave Trade," says the Rev.
Mr. Macbriar, " there were considerable factories here, but
now that the slave market is abolished, and the natives can
find a ready market for the produce of their lands by
means of the British merchants, the cultivation of the soil
increases every year ; and the aborigines have been heard
APPENDIX D. 549
to say, that they now wish they had their slaves back again,
because they could get more by their labour than they did
by selling them to Europeans."
Let us add another of your proofs. The Rev. J. Morgan,
to whom the Foulah mission in the same river partly owes
its origin, recommends the purchase of tracts of land adjoin-
ing the principal rivers. He says, " that thousands would
flee to such places of refuge as soon as they could be
assured of protection, and thus a dense free population
would soon spring up, and commerce would rapidly ex-
tend." I myself am connected by subscription with a
settlement in this river, and the accounts from thence,
which I see yearly, are full of the anxious desire mani-
fested by the natives on the banks of it, to be under our
protection, and to cultivate their lands in peace, and to be
civilized and christianized.
We come now to the Gold Coast. In no part of Africa,
says the Governor, M f Lean, was the Slave Trade more firmly
rooted, or more systematically carried on than in these set-
tlements." e ' But a great change has taken place since its
abolition. The soil, which formerly did not yield sufficient
for the sustenance of the inhabitants, now affords to export
a very large amount of corn to Madeira" u besides greatly
increased quantities of gold-dust and ivory." " The exports
to Great Britain amount to £160,000 per annum." For-
merly " the whole country was one scene of oppression,
cruelty, and disorder, so that a trader dared not go twenty
miles into the bush. At present our communication with
the interior is as free and safe as between England and
Scotland." Add to this the statement, that f ' several hun-
dreds of the natives, through the labours of the Wesleyan
missionaries, have embraced the truths of Christianity."
Having now made a few quotations from what you have
advanced relative to our own colonies on the continent of
Africa, let us quote from what you have said relative to other
550 APPENDIX D.
parts of the same continent which are not in our possession.
The first of these which presents itself in the order of loca-
tion upon that coast, is the country in the neighbourhood of
the Senegal. The natives having had reason to suppose
that it was the intention of the British Government, when
they took possession of this river, to abolish the Slave Trade
as far as their new dominions extended, were filled with joy.
" Seeing no probability of any further Slave Trade," says
Mr. Rendall, who was a resident of St. Louis, in the Senegal,
from 1813 to 1817, "they bethought themselves to turn
their attention to agriculture, and all disposable tracts of
land were in consequence to be found in a state of cultiva-
tion. The .inhabitants passed from one village to another
without fear or jwotective iceapons , and contentment seemed
to reign not only in the countenances, but in the humble huts
of the inhabitants." This account of Mr. Rendall is very
short. It is a pity that he did not dwell more largely, as he
might have done, on the extraordinary industry, which
this belief of the abolition excited ; on the great quantity of
land put in cultivation for miles along the banks of the
Senegal, and on the markets which the people had opened
for themselves. I had an account of these particulars, as
they occurred, from persons at Fort St. Louis, myself, an
had occasion afterwards to transmit them to the Congress at
Aix-la-Chapelle, where I understood they were received and
read .
The next place in order of location is the Island of
Bulama, situated opposite to the country of Biafra, and not far
from the great rivers Rio Grande and Nunez. Here Cap-
tain Beaver, at the close of the last century, attempted to
form a colony. Two of the natives of the opposite continent
soon crossed over to him, and though he told them " he
could have no dealing in slaves," yet their report induced
others to take service with him, and he never afterwards
wanted grumettas or labourers. In one year he employed
APPENDIX D. 551
nearly two hundred of them. He never saw men work
harder, more willingly, or regularly, generally speaking,
than they did. And what induced them, says Captain
Beaver, to do so ? " Their desire of European commodities
in my possession, of which they knew they would have the
value of one bar at the end of the week, or four at the end
of a month. Some of them remained at labour for months
ere they left me. Others, after having left me, returned.
They knew that the labour was constant, but they also knew
that their reward was certain." To this account I may just
add, that I knew Captain Beaver personally, and that I have
heard these and other important statements from his own
lips. He was a captain in the royal navy ; and in private
life he was most estimable, and a man of high moral cha-
racter.
The last place in the same order, but some hundreds of
miles further down the coast, which you quote, is the river
Niger. Unfortunately the gentlemen you mention have not
been resident in the interior of this country, and therefore
can only speak of what they saw and heard while navigating
this immense river. By this river, says Mr. Laird, one
hundred millions of people would be brought into direct con-
tact with the civilized world, new and boundless markets
would be opened to our manufacturers, a continent teeming
with inexhaustible fertility would yield her riches to our
traders ; not merely a nation, but hundreds of nations,
would be awakened from the lethargy of centuries, and be-
come useful and active members of the great commonwealth
of mankind." And what says Mr. Lander of the disposi-
tion of this vast population of the countries through which
this river goes? " The natives," he says, " only require to
know what is wanted from them, and to be shown what
they will have in return, and much produce that is now lost
from neglect, will be returned to a considerable amount."
But the most important evidence which you have cited for
552 APPENDIX D.
this part of the country is Colonel Nicholls. He tells us,
that from his long experience in these and other parts of
Africa, " there is one means, and he is persuaded but one
effectual means, of destroying the Slave Trade, which is by
introducing a liberal and well regulated system of commerce
on the coast of Africa." He then gives us the substance of
a conversation with one of the native chiefs on this subject,
in which he convinced him of the folly of trading in the
bodies of the inhabitants in comparison with trading in the
productions of the soil, so that this chief gave up the Slave
Trade : and says, " I feel convinced that I could influence
all the chiefs along the coast in the same manner : but to
be able to effect this,, it would be necessary to have the means
of moving with a degree of celerity that a steam-vessel alone
would give us." — " Steam-boats would also be of incalculable
use to commerce, by towing ships over bars and agitated cur-
rents, whilst, as a means of catching the Slave-ships, and pro-
tecting the coast from the depredations of their crews, three
steamers loould effect more than the exp>ensive squadron now
maintained there. I pledge myself to put an end to the
whole of our expense, and totally to suppress the Slave
Trade, in two years." O, how I wish that Colonel Nicholls
could be sent again to Africa for this purpose ! He is the
only man alive to effect it. I know him well. His whole
heart and soul are in the project. Besides, he has an inti-
mate knowledge of these seas and harbours, of Fernando Po,
and what it can do towards the abolition of the Slave Trade ;
of the mouth of the Niger, and the great rivers falling into
it; of some of the native chiefs personally, and of the manners,
customs, disposition, and temper in general of the inhabitants
of these parts.
But why should I go further into "The Remedy" you
propose? It would be a waste of words. It has already
appeared probable, nay, more than probable, that if steamers
were employed, and Fernando Po added to our possessions,
APPENDIX D. 553
the capture of the vessels concerned in the hateful traffic
would be comparatively easy ; that treaties might be made
with the African chiefs, and several of them subsidized in
our interest; and that the energies of the natives on that
vast continent might be called forth in a new trade, in the
productions of their soil, (which of itself would sap the
foundation of the Slave Trade,) and that thousands and
tens of thousands of these natives might be engaged in it.
Again, you have projected: a large commercial and agricul-
tural company, which should take off their produce, and
supply their wants. What can you devise, and what can
you desire more, to put down the Slave Trade and to civilize
Africa? I hope then that you will not be so diffident as
you appear to be relative to the success of your measures :
if they do not succeed, none will. I have studied the sub-
ject for more than half a century, and give it as my opinion
that yours is the only plan that will answer. I cannot
doubt that the Government would readily promote your
views, if they were only persuaded that it was probable that
the abolition of the Slave Trade would follow, and that a
great part of the country, the moral and religious part of it,
would be grateful, very grateful, to them for so doing. And
now, my dear Friend, having read your little work twice
over, and having formed my conclusions upon it, and find-
ing these in unison with your own, I thought that you would
be pleased with them ; and thanking you, as every aboli-
tionist must do, for the great labour you must have undergone
in preparing your present plan, I remain, with great
regard,
Your sincere and affectionate Friend,
Thomas Clakkson.
554 APPENDIX E.
APPENDIX E.
Sir,
I mention how my time has been chiefly occupied as an
apology for my abbreviated account of the matter you are in-
quiring about ; however, thus much I can state and verify.
When I was travelling between Der, the capital of Nubia and
Epsambool, I met a slave ship descending the Nile, and as
I wished to see what was going on in the vessel, 1 went on
board to purchase some ostrich feathers. This was in March
last, I cannot tell the exact date, as my journals are in Paris.
There were probably 20 or 25 slaves, of ages between 10 and
16. There was one man about 30 chained to the bifurcated
end of a long pole ; his neck was enclosed by the two branches,
and a chain from one end to the other secured him even
from a movement of his head. The other end of the pole
was locked to the floor of the hold of the vessel. It appears
that this man had attempted to escape. I actually saw but
this one vessel, but my interpreter told me that several
slave vessels had passed us in the night.
I was in the slave market in Cairo ; I saw many slaves,
male and female, on sale ; being an European, I was not
permitted to see the white slaves, nor do I know that there
were any on sale at that time. The black slaves 1 had free
access to ; and I was told that there were some white ones in
the rooms.
I am, Sir, your obedient Servant,
Wm. Hyde Pearson.
APPENDIX F.
APPENDIX F.
555
Copy of a Letter from the Right Honour oble Lord John
Russell to the Lords Commissioners of Her Majesty's
Treasury. (Laid on the table of the House of Com-
mons, 8th February, 1840.)
Downing Street,
My Lords, 26th December, 1839.
The state of the foreign Slave Trade has for some time
past engaged much of the attention of Her Majesty's
Confidential Advisers. In whatever light this traffic is
viewed, it must be regarded as an evil of incalculable mag-
nitude; the injuries it inflicts on the lawful commerce of
this country, the constant expense incurred in the employ-
ment of ships of war for the suppression of it, and the
annual sacrifice of so many valuable lives in this service,
however deeply to be lamented, are not the most disastrous
results of this system. The honour of the British Crown is
compromised by the habitual evasion of the treaties subsist-
ing between Her Majesty and foreign powers for the aboli-
tion of the Slave Trade, and the calamities which, in
defiance of religion, humanity, and justice, are inflicted on
a large proportion of the African continent, are such as can-
not be contemplated without the deepest and most lively
concern. The Houses of Lords and Commons have, in
their addresses to the Crown, expressed, in the most ener-
getic terms, the indignation with which Parliament regards
the continuance of the trade in African slaves, and their
anxious desire that every practicable method should be
taken for the extinction of this great social evil.
2o
556 APPENDIX F.
To estimate the actual extent of the foreign Slave Trade,
is, from the nature of the case, an attempt of extreme diffi-
culty ; nor can anything more than a general approximation
to the truth be made. But after the most attentive
examination which it has been in my power to make, of
official documents, and especially of the correspondence
communicated to Parliament from the department of Her
Majesty's Principal Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs,
I find it impossible to avoid the conclusion, that the average
number of slaves introduced into foreign states or colonies
in America and the West Indies, from the western coast
of Africa, annually exceeds 100,000. In this estimate
a very large deduction is made for the exaggerations
which are more or less inseparable from all statements
on a subject so well calculated to excite the feelings of
every impartial and disinterested witness. But making
this deduction, the number of slaves actually landed in the
importing countries affords but a very imperfect indication
of the real extent of the calamities which this traffic inflicts
on its victims. No record exists of the multitudes who
perish in the overland journey to the African coast, or in
the passage across the Atlantic, or of the still greater num-
ber who fall a sacrifice to the warfare, pillage, and cruelties
by which the Slave Trade is fed. Unhappily, however, no
fact can be more certain, than that such an importation as I
have mentioned, presupposes and involves a waste of human
life, and a sum of human misery, proceeding from year to
year, without respite or intermission, to such an extent as to
render the subject the most painful of any which, in the
survey of the condition of mankind, it is possible to con-
template.
The preceding statement unavoidably suggests the in-
quiry, why the costly efforts in which Great Britain has so
APPENDIX F. 557
long been engaged for repressing the foreign Slave Trade
have proved thus ineffectual? Without pausing to enume-
rate the many concurrent causes of failure, it may be suffi-
cient, to say that such is the difference between the price at
which a slave is bought on the coast of Africa and the price
for which he is sold in Brazil or Cuba, that the importer
receives back his purchase- money tenfold on the safe arrival
of his vessel at the port of destination. It is more than
probable that the general profits of the trade, if accurately
calculated, would fall exceedingly below this estimate, as
indeed it is certain that in many cases it is carried on at a
ruinous loss. But your Lordships are well aware, how
powerful and constant an impulse may be given to any
species of illegal traffic, however hazardous, when they who
engage in it are allured by the hope of very larg'e and quick
returns, if their good fortunes could enable them to escape
the penalties of the law. It may therefore be readily under-
stood how effective is such a stimulus, when, as in the case
in question, the law itself is regarded with general disfavour
in the society to which the violator of it belongs, and is
reluctantly executed by the government of that society. We
must add to this exciting motive the security which is derived
from insurances, and insurance companies, which are carried
on to a great extent, and combined powerful interests.
Under such circumstances, to repress the foreign Slave
Trade by a marine guard would scarcely be possible, if the
whole British navy could be employed for that purpose. It
is an evil which can never be adequately encountered by
any system of mere prohibition and penalties.
Her Majesty's confidential advisers are therefore com-
pelled to admit, the conviction that it is indispensable to
enter upon some new preventive system, calculated to arrest
the foreign Slave Trade in its source, by counteracting the
2o2
558 APPENDIX F.
principles by which it is now sustained. Although it may-
be impossible to check the cupidity of those who purchase
slaves for exportation from Africa,, it may yet be possible to
force on those, by whom they are sold, the persuasion that
they are engaged in a traffic, opposed to their own interests
when correctly understood.
With this view it is proposed to establish new commer-
cial relations with those African chiefs or powers within
whose dominions the internal Slave Trade of Africa is car-
ried on, and the external Slave Trade supplied with its
victims. To this end the Queen has directed Her Minis-
ters, to negotiate conventions or agreements with those
chiefs and powers, the basis of which conventions would be,
first, the abandonment and absolute prohibition of the
Slave Trade; and, secondly, the admission for. consumption
in this country, on favourable terms, of goods the produce
or manufacture of the territories subject to them. Of those
chiefs, the most considerable rule over the countries adja-
cent to the Niger and its great tributary streams. It is
therefore proposed to dispatch an expedition which would
ascend that river by steam-boats, as far as the points at
which it receives the confluence of some of the principal
rivers falling into it from the eastward. At these, or at any
other stations which may be found more favourable for the
promotion of a legitimate commerce, it is proposed to esta-
blish British Factories, in the hope that the natives may be
taught that there are methods of employing the population
more profitable to those to whom they are subject, than that
of converting them into slaves, and selling them for expor-
tation to the slave traders.
In this communication it would be out of place, and
indeed impracticable, to enter upon a full detail of the plan
itself; of the ulterior measures to which it. may lead, or of
the reasons which induce Her Majesty's Government to
APPENDIX F. 559
believe that it may eventually lead to the substitution of an
innocent and profitable commerce, for that traffic by which
the continent of Africa has so long been desolated. For
my immedia'e purpose it will be sufficient to say, that
having maturely weighed these questions, and with a full
perception of the difficulties which may attend this under-
taking, the Ministers of the Crown are yet convinced that
it affords the best, if not the only prospect of accomplishing
the great object so earnestly desired by the Queen, by her
Parliament, and her people.
Having instituted a careful inquiry as to the best and
most economical method of conducting the proposed expe-
dition, I find from the enclosed communication from the
Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty, that it will be ne-
cessary to build three iron steam-vessels for this service,
and that the first cost of those vessels, including provisions
and stores for six months, will amount to 35,000/. It fur-
ther appears that the annual charge of paying and victual-
ling the officers and men will be 10,546/. The salaries of
the conductors of the expedition, and of their chaplain and
surgeon, will probably amount to 4,000/. In addition to this
expenditure, Presents must be purchased for the chiefs, and
tents, mathematical instruments, with some other articles
of a similar kind, will be indispensable for the use of the
persons who are to be engaged in this service, when at a
distance from their vessels. I have some time since given
directions for the completion of this additional estimate, but
with those directions it has not hitherto been found prac-
ticable to comply. The charge for this branch of the pro-
posed service will not be very considerable.
I have to convey to your Lordships my recommendation
that in the estimates to be laid before the House of Com-
mons for the services of the year 1840, the sums be in-
560 APPENDIX F.
dueled which are necessary to provide for the expenses of
the proposed expedition to the Niger, on the scale already-
mentioned, under the several heads of expenditure.
I have, &c.
(Signed) J. Russell.
INDEX.
A.
Abolitionists, African, 470]
Abu-Muhammed, projected railroad from, to Kurusku, 433
Adamastos, a slave vessel that lost 304 out of 800 slaves on her voy-
age, 162
Adams, an Englishman enslaved at Timbuctoo, 462
Addah Cuddah, an African town destroyed in a slave hunt, 85
Addahkuddah, a town on the Niger, 472
Advances already made in introducing education and religion, 498
Africa, her early condition unknown, but more flourishing than in
modern times, 227; engaged in agricultural pursuits in the twelfth
and sixteenth centuries, 227 ; evidence of Sir J. Hawkins in 1562,
227 ; of Bosman in 1700, of W. Smith in 1726, description of the
country by recent travellers, 228,472,473; of the interior, 474;
inhabitants in a demoralised state, 231, 290; the knowledge we
possess very limited, 269, 277; reason to suppose that her condi-
tion is far worse than it has been ascertained to be, 269 ; her ca-
pabilities, 271, 280, 307, 459, 476 ; disposition to trade, 272, 476 ;
much confidence in the British, 289 ; favourable disposition of
chiefs in the interior, 290 ; importance of, as a field of European
commerce, 305 ; her productions, 310 to 337; willingness of the
people to labour, 328 ; her geographical position, 357
African statistics, 307, 311; population, 472
African timber, extent to which it is imported, 478
African trade contrasted with other trades to show its present insig-
nificance, 304, 307 ; its value in introducing civilisation and
Christianity, 306 ; imports increased since 1820, 308 ; articles
calculated for, enumerated, 310 to 329; might be largely ex-
tended in cotton, 335 ; at present checked by the slave trade, 340,
472 ; the import trade into Africa capable of vast extension, 341,
343, 377; facilities for commercial intercourse, 344; security ne-
cessary, 358; principles on which all trade with Africa should be
conducted, 441
Agents, in all cases, should be negroes or coloured, 286, 454 ; to be
obtained among the liberated Africans, 492 ; also from Jamaica,
494; from Antigua, 495; from Wesleyan negroes in the West
Indies, generally, 495
Aglae, a slave vessel, description of her stowage of her slaves> 136
2p
562 INDEX.
Agricultural Company recommended, 518
Agriculture discouraged by the slave trade, 226, 279, 483 ; its pro-
fitable returns, 280 ; would be checked by the removal of our
cruisers, 284 ; eligible character of the country, 316; in Liberia,
327 ; places adapted for cotton, 335 ; practical effect in providing
greater profits than are found in the slave trade, 338; general
success at Sierra Leone, 376 ; agricultural school at McCarthy's
Island, 390 ; model plantations suggested by Governor Rendall,
414; by Mr. Laird, 420; natives disposed to agriculture, 475;
state of, at Kimba, 482
Aguila Primera, slave vessel, 37
Ahomed, the Arab master of Captain Paddock, 467
Aku, language generally understood by captured negroes, 499, note
Albreda, a French settlement on the Gambia, 385
Alcide, Portuguese slave vessel, 51
Allen, Captain W., R.N., employed by the Admiralty to ascend the
Niger, 423 ; his views coincident with those of the Remedy, 423
Allen, William, a slave trader, 123
Anaconda, an American slave vessel, 40
Angola, its slave exports, 51, 52 ; the governor of, a slave trader, 207
Angornou, a market for the Mahommedan slave trade, 63
Apoko, chief linguist to the king of the Ashantees, 258
Apollonia, conduct of the king of, in a slave-trading transaction, 394
Arab vessels, employed in slave trade, 60
Arabian slave trade, its extent, 66
Arabic, used as a written language in the interior, 474
Arabin, Captain, his description of the native manufactures at Cas-
samanza, 483
Argentine republic, its share in the slave trade, 38, 53
Argus, a Spanish slaye vessel that threw ninely-seven of her slaves
overboard, 157
Arogan, a slave vessel, mortality arising from stowage described, 1G1
Ashantees, their ferocious character and customs, 236 to 240; effects
of missionary labour among them, 490
Ashmun, his advice to Liberian settlers, 326, 331 ; his opinion on
African cotton, 334
Attah, an African town on the Niger, 472
Aviso, a slave vessel, her stowage described, 144 ; after capture, 176
13.
Badagry, in the Bight of Benin, a slave market, 1 15
Bahia, its slave imports, 1 8
Bammakoo, on the Niger, 345
Bandinel, Mr., of the Foreign Office, his testimony to African fidelity
INDEX. 563
to treaties, 297; respecting^ Sierra Leone, 362; respecting St.
Mary's on the Gambia, 384
Banee island, 478
Barra, its chief favourable to missionaries, 489 ; treaty with him, 532
Bassa language, books in it, 499
Bates, Elisha, his evidence of the efficacy of Christianity in improv-
ing the temporal condition of the American Indians, 510
Beaver, Captain, his opinion of the fertility of Africa, 333 ; his
attempt to establish a colony on the island of Bulama, 447J
Beecham, Rev. John, 505
Becroft, Captain, his views on the abolition of slave-trading by agri-
culture and commerce, 424
Begharmi, a district in the interior, 346
Bello, sultan of the Felatahs,his overtures to Captain Clapperlon, 293
Benguela, its slave exports, 50, 51 ; state of its slave deput, 113
Benin, its manufacture of muskets, 479
Berracoe, 247
Biafra, king of, treaty with him, 532
Bimbia river, 545
Bloodhounds, on board slave-vessels to keep the slaves in order, 143
Boaul, 534
Bondou, 478, 489 ; treaty with the king of, 533
Boollibanny, the capital of Bondou, 489,
Bornou, slave trade, 66, 70, 79 ; sheik of, the terms of his alliances
with the sultan of Mandara, 80; inhabitants averse to the trade,
291 ; its manufactures, 480
Bossman, his statement of the mortality of slave-trading expeditions,
98
Bowditch, Mr., his description of the human sacrifices, 233, 234
Bowring, Dr., his information respecting slave importations into
Egypt, 68, 109 ; his account of the sufferings of a female slave
over the desert, 110 ; of slaves during the seasoning, 193
Brazilian Friends, a slave vessel, her stowage, and the state of her
cargo described, 144
Brazilian Government, its connivance at the trade, 27, 180
Brazilian slave trade, 16, 18, 19, 24; evidence of its extent, 21, 22, 29
53; on the increase, 25, 28; with Quilimane, 49; its extent with
the east coast of Africa, 50
Breckama, king of, desirous of British protection, 534
Brillante, a slave vessel that lost 214 out of 621 slaves, 163
British manufactures, trade purposely for the slave trade, 55 ; the
extent of such manufactures, 56
Brown, the botanist, his observations on the uniformity of vegetation
in Western Africa, 329
2p2
564 INDEX.
Browne, the traveller, his estimate of the number of slaves in cara-
vans, 65 ; his description of the march to the coast, 99
Bruce, the traveller, his account of slave-hunting expeditions, 74
Buenos Ayres, slave imports, 37, 53
Bulama, an island, the scene of Captain Beaver's colonial specula-
tion, 447 ; in the Rio Grande, belonging to Great Britain, 535
Bullen, Captain R.N., his description of the "Aviso" after capture,
176; of Fernando Po, 350
Bullom language, Gospel of St. Matthew translated into, 499
Bulola, king of, treaty with him, 532
Burckhardt, his information respecting the slave market at Shendy
66, 69 ; respecting the march to the coast, 103
Byara, Mr., his efforts to suppress slave trading at the Mauritius,
220
Cacheo, a Portuguese settlement, 535
Caillie, the African traveller, his description of the march to the
coast, 106
Calabar, Old, a district under Duke Ephraim, 486
Calabases river, 545
Camaroons, a mountain in Fernando Po, 348
Camaroon river, 545
Campbell, Lieutenant-Colonel, his official remonstrance with Mahom-
med Ali respecting slave hunts, 90
Canabac, palaver with the kings of, respecting the cession of Bula-
ma, 535
Cape Palmas coast, slave exports, 52
Capsicum, 375
Capture, mortality after, 175; evidence of Admiral Hamond, 175;
of Captain Bullen, 175; of Mr. McCormack, 176; fourteen pet-
cent, on the number captured, 178 ; loss of life after capture illus-
trated in the case of seventeen vessels, amounting to 44 per cent.,
183 ; report of the committee of 1830, 183
Captured slaves, their state on being liberated, 369
Caravalho, a Portuguese, the only slave trader on the Rio Nunez,
381
Carbo, a war in, lasted for 12 years, 534
Calros, a slave trader, from which slaves were thrown overboard, J35
Carletta, a slave vessel that by mismanagement was wrecked and
lost 2G9 slaves, 166
Carolina, a slave vessel, sufferings of her cargo from want of water
described, 160
INDEX.' 565
Cassamanza, a river, the site of Portuguese factories, 483
Cassan, 534
Cassoos, a powerful slave-trading tribe, 83
Castle, Captain R.N., his description of a slave vessel captured by
him, 150
Cayor, 534
Christianity cannot be introduced till the slave trade is suppressed,
10,11,226; its connexion with legitimate commerce, 306; with
agriculture, 483 ; its civilising power, 502
Cinco Amicos, slave vessel, 36
Cintra, a slave vessel that lost 214 out of 970 slaves, 163
Civilization of Africa may be effected by education in the country,
279, 502 ; will be introduced by legitimate commerce, 306 ; general
remarks, 360; results of experience, 362 ; in the case of the Gold
Coast, 390 ; of St. Mary's, 384; coincidence of opinions on the
way of promoting it, 423 ; predicted by Pitt, 458 ; rapidly advanced
by Christianity, 504, 505 ; specific steps to be taken, 518
Clapperton, Captain, his interviews with Bello, sultan of the Felafahs,
on the suppression of the trade, 293 ; his report on African
cotton, 333
Clarence, in Fernando Po, its description, 540
Clarke, George, twelve years resident in New Zealand, his views of
the power of Christianity in advancing civilization, 505
Clarkson, Thomas, his views as to the means of abolishing slave
trading, 424 ; Appendix D., 545
Clippers, American, a vessel particularly used for the slave trade,
because built for speed without reference to the accommodation of
the cargo, 159
Clouston.Mr., a merchant at Freetown, his speculation in ginger, 374
Coates, Mr., his views of the power of Christianity in advancing
civilization, 503
Cobbe, a market for the Mohammedan slave trade, 63
Coffee, 330, 331
Coincidence of opinions on the civilization of Africa, 423, 435, 436
Collier, Admiral, his report of the capture of La Jeune Estelle, 140
Collingwood, Luke, the captain of a slave vessel who threw his
slaves overboard, 131
Combo, king of, treaty with him, 532
Commerce essential to Africa, 7, 278; mercantile views of an
African chief, 280 ; of the. inhabitants of Bornou, 291 ; nature of
the existing trade described, 304
Commissioners in mixed commission courts, 18, 30
Committee on Sierra Leone, its report, 364
Commodore, a slave vessel that lost 300 out of 685 slaves, 163
566 INDEX.
Conclusion, 523, summary of the motives that should induce national
exertion, 523 to 531
Conquest in Africa disclaimed, 453
Contraband slave trading must prevail, even if every state declared
it piracy, 221 ; the profits too great to allow of smuggling being
prevented, 222
Cook, Captain, his description of slave mortality on board slave
traders in port, 119; of the horrors incident to their detention,
120, 132
Coomassie, the capital of Ashantee, the scene of atrocious horrors,
233, 246 to 267
Constantia, a slave vessel of which the cargo was reduced from 438
to 70, 153
Corintchie, chief of Fornunnah, 248 ; his observance of the " customs* 1
on the death of his sister, 250
Corroborative proofs of the extent of the slave trade, 46, 52 ; as
derived from manufactures for the trade, 54; their general result,
57 ; as derived from captured vessels, 58
Cotton, 326, 332 ; vast national importance of an additional market
for its supply, 335 ; eligibility of Africa as such a market, 335 ;
instance of its rapid growth, 336; promise of success, 377,380;
in Soudan, 435
Contalacunda, chief of, subsidy to him, 532
Cresson, Elliot, his evidence of valuable character of a trade with
Liberia, 325
Cuba, 29; its slave population in 1828, 33; its sugar exports, 33 ; slave-
trading connexion with the United States, 42 ; extent of its trade
on Governor M'Lean's calculation, 47 ; its trade with Quilimane,
49 ; its extent according to Lieutenant Bosanquet, 50 ; its extent
according to M'Queen, 53, 133
Cullen, Dr., his statement of mortality after landing, 190
Custom-house should not be established at Fernando Po, 443
Customs, or ceremonies observed by Africans, very cruel, 235 ; de-
scription of them, 236 ; by Mr. Freeman, 250
D.
Dalrymple, his statement on the abundance of cotton grown in
Africa, 333
Darfours, caravans, 66, 67, 68, 70, 95
Darkalla, an African town destroyed in a slave hunt, 80
Davis, Mr. R., 505
Denham, Major, his description of the way of seizing slaves, 79 ; of
the mortality of slaves during wars, 99 ; of the march to the coast,
107, 108 ; of the disposition of Bornou, 291 ; on cotton, 333
INDEX. 567
Descubierta, slave vessel, 36
Desert or caravan slave trade, 63, 6S ; its extent, 69 ; its hardships,
103
De Souza, a great slave trader at Whydah, 225 ; slave broker to the
king of Dahomey, 398
Destimida, a slave vessel, her stowage described, 154
Detention, the mortality incident to, 113
Devaynes, his statement of the mortality of slave-trading expe-
ditions, 98
Diana, a slave vessel, her state described, 144
Dolores, an American slave vessel, 40
Dongola, productive of indigo in considerable quantities, 433
Don Manuel, a slave vessel, her mortality described, 162
Donna Maria da Gloria, a slave vessel, her dreadful state after cap-
ture, 178
Donovan, Dr. James, his report of the state of liberated Africans,
188
Drugs, fit for trade, enumerated, 325
Duke Ephraim, chief of Old Calabar, his library, 486
Duqueza de Braganza, a slave vessel, dreadful mortality of her
cargo, after landing, 190; statement of her expenses and profits,
224
Dupuis, British consul atAshantee, his statement of the opinions
of the king ofAshantee, 78; his description of the "customs"
of the country, 236 ; of African productions, 314
Duty, 6f Great Britain, of restitution to Africa, by introducing
Christianity and civilization, 512
Dyer, Rev. Mr., his communication of the wish to send a mission to
Africa from Jamaica, 492
E.
East Indian goods employed in the slave trade, 58
Eastern coast, its extensive trade,, 476
Eboe, an African town on the Niger, 346
Egga, a large town on the Niger, in a fertile country, 318, 346
Egyptian slave trade, its extent, 66, 67
Elevation of the native mind an essential duty, 278,457; African
disposition to learn, 457, 484; the shortest road to the extinction
of the slave trade, 502
El Juan, a Spanish slave vessel, in which the slaves were fired upon
in the hold during chase, 150
El Kenemy, sultan of Bomou, his sentiments on the slave trade,
292, 293
Ellis, Rev. William, his opinion on the connexion between civiliz-
ation and Christianity, 507
568
INDEX.
Emanuel, an American slave vessel, 40
Esne, in Egypt, 66
Esperanza, a Spanish slave vessel on board which between 60 and
70 slaves were deliberately murdered, 169
Esplorado, a slave vessel on board of which 300 out of 500 slaves
were suffocated during bad weather, by closing the hatches, 171
Esplorador, a slave vessel that lost 360 out of 560 slaves, 163
Es-Siout, in Egypt, 66, 67
Estelle, a Spanish slave vessel that, being wrecked, left her cargo on
the shoal while the crew escaped, and all perished, to the number
of 300, 170
Exclusive privileges in trade objectionable 443
Experience, the results of, in attempts hitherto made 1o civilize
Africa, 362
Exports to Asia, America, Australia, Hayti, Central Africa, 308 j
Eyo or Aku language, printed grammars in it, 499
F.
acilities for commercial intercourse, 344, 419; facilities of making
treaties, 532
Factories should be established, 337; mode of proceeding, 337; their
locality matter of importance, 388, 390 ; should be fixed in the
interior of the country, 389; Laird's suggestions, 420
Failure of past efforts for abolition of the slave trade, 203 ; sum-
mary of the argument, 2)8; impossibility of getting the trade
declared piracy, 218; where it has been so declared, the law has
been a dead letter, 219
Falconbridge, his description of the conveyance of slaves to the
coast, 102; of the middle passage, 124; his respectability, 129;
on seasoning, 184
Faleme, a river flowing into the Senegal, 356"
Fama de Cadiz, a slave vessel, dreadful mortality on board described,
153
Fanny Butler, an American slave vessel, 41
Fantees, a tribe at war with the Asbantees, 490
Fazoglo, conduct of Mohammed Ali at, 429, 432
Felatahs, an African tribe given to slave trading, 85, 293
Felix, a Portuguese slave vessel, its dreadful state on capture de-
scribed, 158
Fergusson, Mr., his statements respecting Sierra Leone, 36 7
Fernando Po, a commanding position, 347; country described, 349,
537; on what terms it should be occupied, 443 ; its productions,
538; its climate, 539
Fetish, explained, 231, note
INDEX. 569
Fetish tree, described by Lander, 243
Fez, a slave depot north of the desert, 64
Finden, a resident merchant on the Gambia, his testimony to the
extinction of the slave trade in that river, by the introduction of
commerce, 386
Flor de Loando, a slave vessel, dreadful state after capture, 181
Flor de Quilimane, a slave vessel that lost 163 out of 850 slaves,
162
Fomunnah, 250
Foolokolong, a Poulah town, destroyed by slave traders, 86, 238
Foot ah Jallow, 534
Foulahs, a powerful nation in the interior, 295 ; their coffee trade,
331, 381 ; intelligent, 382
Foulis, Mr., assistant surgeon, his report of the state of liberated
Africans, 188
Fox, Mr., his estimate of the extent of the slave trade in 1792,
204
Fox, Rev. Mr., his description of the depopulating effects of slave
hunts, 86, 87, 88; of the "customs" of Africa, 238; of the fertility-
Laming, 324 ; of African disposition to labour, 452
France, her flag lent to cover slave trading, 205 ; cannot by her con-
stitution declare the trade to be piracy, 218
Franfrahan, 265
Franklin, his definition of a slave, 471
Free labour, 10, 439, 444
Free trade, 44 1
Freeman, Rev. Thomas, extracts from his journal describing his
visit to Coomassie, 246 to 267; his information of the prospect of
black missionaries from Jamaica, 397
Freetown, its description, 371; supply of its market by liberated
slaves, 476
Fruits, fit for trade, enumerated, 323, 327
Fundah, a town on the Niger, 346
G.
Gabree, a chief in Fantee, 267
Gambia, its character, 356, 379
Gazoua, or slave hunt, 68; particularly described, 90, 91, 92, 93,
109 ; forbidden by Mohammed Ali, 429
General Espartero, a slave vessel, statement of her profits, 224
General Laborde, a slave vessel, captured, and liberated on frivolous
excuses, 217
General Review of the subject, 267
Generous, a slave vessel, cruelty on board, 118
570 INDEX.
Geographical position of Africa, 357
Ghadanics, a slave depot north of the Desert, 64
Ginger, African, 323, and note
Giraud, Mr., his statement of the frequency of human sacrifices, 233
Gold Coast, settlement at, an illustration of the advantage of locality,
390; slave trade wholly suppressed by introduction of legitimate
commerce, 391 ; its exports to Great Britain amount to 160,000/.
per annum, 397
Gotto, on the Benin, its extensive market described, 476
Gray, Major, his testimony to the slave trade being the cause of war,
78 ; his account of the march to the coast, 104; on African civil-
ization, 421
Great Britain originally enslaved, 13
Greville, Sir Fulk, his report of the abundance of cotton at T imbue-
too in Queen Elizabeth's time, 332
Greybo language, books in it, 499
Gums,, fit for trade, enumerated, 321
H.
Hagan Lieut., R.N., his statement of the open traffic in slaves at
Bissao, 206
Hall, General, his efforts to convict slave traders at the Mauritius, 220
Hamilton, Captain, R.N., his search of theDestinida slave vessel, 154
Havana, its slave imports, 30, 32, 40 ; slave-trading connexion with
the United States, 41, 44; its slave trade increasing, 210; present
value of slaves there, 223
Hayes, Captain, R.N., his description of the wholesale suicide of
slaves on board a slave vessel, 154 ; of women bringing forth chil-
dren on board, and of living men being chained to putrid bodies,
155
Hemp, 330
Holroyd, Doctor, respecting the slaves annually captured by Moham-
med Ali, 67; his account of slave hunts, 95, 96, 108; of the slave
march to Kartoom, 1 1 1
Houssa, great intercourse by boats with Mushgrelia, 474
Human sacrifices most prevalent in slave-trading districts, 230;
evidence of Captain Fawkner, 231 ; of Mr. Giraud, 232; of Mr.
Bowditch, 234; of Mr. Dupuis, 236
Hutchison, Mr., his report of Christian and Mohammedan co-opera-
tion in repudiating fetishes and superstitious abominations at Coo-
massie, 501
I,
Iccory, a town on the Niger, 346; its market described, 475
Imaum of Muscat, his slave trading, 60; treaty with, (iO
[index. 571
Incomprehensible, a slave vessel, in which the slaves, after capture,
were found to be so cramped by confinement that their limbs
were with difficulty straightened, 161
Indigo, 327, 330, 432
Ingenuity, instances of, quoted, 479
Inhambani, its slave exports, 49, 81
Instruction, facilities for giving it, 459, 486 ; allowances to be made
for the negro, 460; aptitude for receiving it, 484; advances already
made, 498
Intrepido, a slave vessel, in which 208 out of 343 slaves died from
the stowage, 149
Invincible, an American slave vessel wrecked at the Bahamas, 42
Invincible, a slave vessel, its extreme mortality arising from close
stowage described, 149 ; afterwards wrecked with 200 slaves on
board, only 53 of whom were saved, the greater part being chained
together; horrible conduct of the crew, 168, 169
Isabelita, slave vessel, 52
J.
Jackson, the African traveller, his information, 65 ; his report of the
mortality of a slave caravan, 108
Jackson, Mr., a judge of the Mixed Commission Court at Sierra
Leone, his description of the aggravation of the sufferings of the
middle passage by the illicit character of the trade, 159; of a
slave vessel after capture, 177
Jamallie, a Mandingo town, fired by slave traders, 86
Jenne, a market for the Mohammedan slave trade, 63 ; its gun-
powder manufactory, 479
Joaquim, a Portuguese slave vessel, state of her cargo after landing*
186
Johovah, slave vessel, 25
Jones, Peter, a converted chief of the Chippeway Indians, his testi-
mony to the power of Christianity in advancing civilization, 506
Ju-ju, an African town, a depot for slaves, 117
Juragua, 30
K.
Kacunda, a large town on the Niger, in a fertile country, 318
Kaikandy, the chief trading town on the Rio Nunez, 380
Kauem, a district in the interior, 346
Kankan, 482
Kano, a market for the Mohammedan slave trade, 63 ; its indigo es-
tablishments, 480
Kartoum, the capital of Sennaar, 429, 432
Kasbenda, a depot for slave trade, 50
5?2 INDEX.
Keats, James, a black missionary from Jamaica to Africa, 495
Kelly, Captain, his judicial declaration of the state of his prize, the
Nova Felicidade, 139
Kilham, Hannah, her labours in negro education, 484 ; her remarks
on the native disposition to learn, 484
Kimba, its agriculture, 482
Koranko, a district favourable to the palm tree, 329
Kordofan, annual slave imports, 67, 70; slave hunts, 91, 109, 429
Korgo, an African district, the scene of a slave hunt, 96
Kouka, a market for the Mohammedan slave trade, 63
Koy, the king of Woolli, 533
Kroomen, a tribe at Cape Palraas, their habits and character, 478
Kurusku, its projected railroad, 433
L.
Laborde, Count de, his report of slave hunts, 91
Labour, its value and supply, 438 ; must be free, 444 ; Appendix C.
Mr. Fox's testimony to the willingness of the Africans to labour,
452
La Jeune Estelle, a slave vessel from which slaves were thrown over-
board in casks, 140
Laing, Captain, his opinion of African fertility, 329
Laird, the African traveller, his statement of slave-trading expedi-
tions, 84 ; his reasons for the increased mortality of the middle
passage, 159 ; his statement of the degraded state of Africa, 231 ;
on the interior trade, 334; Fernando Po, 347
Laming, a Mandingo town, fired by slave traders, 86 ; country fer-
tile, 324
Lander, the African traveller, his statement as to African wars, 84 ;
of mortality on the march, 112 ; at the depot at Papoe, 114 ; at
Badagry, 115 ; his account of barbarities at Badagry, 241 ; of the
sheik of Bornou, 293 ; on the cotton plant, 334
Landing and seasoning, 184 ; evidence of Falconbridge, 184 ; hor-
rible cruelties" on sale, 185; opinion of Mr. Reffell, 188; of Mr.
Rankin, 189; of Dr. Cullen, 190; summary of mortality incident
to this period, 194
Languages, African, progress made in them, 499
La Pantica, a slave vessel, sufferings of her cargo after capture, 179
Leake, Colonel, his information respecting the supply of slaves at
Cairo, 67
Leao, a slave vessel that lost 283 out of 855 slaves, 30 of whom were
thrown overboard alive, 162
L'Eclair, a French slave vessel, her stowage described, 143
Le Daniel, a slave vessel, in which nineteen slaves were killed in
INDEX. 573
struggle for fresh air, 149; 'a slave vessel captured by Captain
Bullen, 545
Lee, Mrs., her " Stories of Strange Lands" quoted, 322, note
Leonard, his statement of the mortality of slaves at the period of
detention, 116
Les Deux Soeurs, a slave vessel, her stowage described, 142 ■
L'Espoir, a slave vessel, her piratical character, 145
L'Henriette Aimee, a slave vessel that lost all her cargo by wreck,
167
Liberated Africans, 369; their progressive improvement, 371 , 476 ; form
the Colonial Militia, 372; qualified for agents, 492; General Tur-
ner's description of them, 541 ; Colonel Denham's description, 542
Liberia, its fruitful character, 327; favourable to coffee, 331 ; its in-
ternal economy described, 487
Lindy river, a mart for slaves, 60
Loango, Portuguese settlement at, 454
Lushington, Right Hon. S., in favour of the permanent neutrality of
Fernando Po, 443
Lyon, Captain, his estimate of slave trade in Fezzan, 65; his report
of a slave hunt, 77 ; of the march to the coast, 105
M.
Macarthy, Governor, his intercourse with Almami Abdool Kaddree,
king of the Foulahs, 295 ; his testimony in support of the prin-
ciples of the Remedy, 400
Macaulay, Mr., his estimate of the extent of the slave trade, 204
Macaulay, Kenneth, on Sierra Leone, 365
Macaulay, Mr. Henry, his evidence before the Aborigines Commit-
tee, 298 ; on Fernando Po, 366
McBrair, Rev. Mr., his description of slave seizures, 88 ; of the re-
gret expressed by African chiefs that they have sold their slaves,
230; on the Gambia, 385
McCormack, John, his description of slave vessels after capture,
176; of African fertility, 316
McLean, Governor, his estimate of the extent of the slave trade, 47 ;
his calculations founded on manufactures for the trade, 54 ; of its
profits, 225 *
McQueen, Mr., his estimate of the extent of slave trade, 53, 365 ;
his suggestions for its suppression, 415
Magico, a slave vessel, wrecked and attempted to be blown up by
her crew with all her slaves on board, 167
Mandara, the sultan of, marries his daughter to the sheik of Bornou
for the proceeds of a slave hunt, 80
Mandingo language, reduced to grammatical form, 389
574 INDEX.
Mandingoes, 478 ; language reduced to grammatical form, 499
Maranham, its slave imports, 1 8
March to the coast, 99 ; particularly described by Mungo Pari;, 100 ;
by Falconbridge, 102; by Riley, 103; by Major Gray, 104 ; by
Lyon, 105 ; by Caillie, 106 ; by Major Denham, 107
Maria, a slave vessel, her horrible state from disease, described, 150
Maria de Cruz, a woman, the owner of two slave vessels, on board
both of which the slaves were flogged and starved to death, 148
Maria Peguena, a slave vessel belonging to Maria de Cruz, on board
of which the slaves were starved to death, 148
Massona, in Abyssinia, 66
Mendez, Dr., his estimate of mortality on the march to the coast, 113
Mends, Sir R., his opinion that the suppression of slave dealing uni-
formly has led to agricultural occupation, 483
Mesurado, Cape, American settlement at, 454
Midas, a slave vessel, of which the cargo was reduced from 560 to
282, 153
Middle passage, 122; described by Falconbridge, 124; but its
horrors undei-stated in the opinion of naval officers,' 126; no direct
modern evidence accessible, 130; its horrors increased by the
clandestine character of the trade, 159 ; mortality of four vessels
1088 out of 2836, 163; description of it by a Spanish slave captain,
164; wrecks, a source of, 146; evidence of Lieutenant Wilson,
R.N., 171 ; summary of the mortality of the middle passage, 172
Minerals, 313
Miscellaneous productions fit for trade, indigenous in Africa, 325 :
on the eastern coast, 477
Missionaries of colour easily obtained, 11; great success of, 389, 397
Mohammed Ali, his slave hunts, 90, 1 09 ; his journey to Soudan, 428
Mohammedan slave trade, 59; its extent on the east coast, 62;
marts for carrying it on, 63 ; aggregate amount, 69
Mohammedan slavery in Africa itself, 70
Mokhara, in Arabia, a large slave market, 67
Monte Video, engaged in slave trade, 38, 39 ; omitted in the general
calculation, 40
Montfort, Denis de, his paper on the productiveness of Africa, 327
Moresby, Captain, his description of the manner of carrying on the
Arab slave trade, 78 ; of the passage coastways, 165 , of the pre-
valence of the trade at the Mauritius, 220
Morgan, Rev. Mr., his testimony as to the effect of the slave trade in
occasioning war, 89
Morgan, Rev. John, his opinion that protection is all that is wanted
to secure the extension of commerce and agriculture, 388; on the
salubrity of the interior, 388
index. 575
Mortality incident to the slave trade, 73 ; causes of it, 73 ; as inci-
dent to seizure, doubled since 1790, 97 ; summary of, incident to
seizure, 97; incident to the march to thecoast, 99, 111 ; evidence
of Browne, 99; of Park, 100; of Falconbridge, 102; of Riley,
103; of Major Gray, 1 04 ; of Captain Lyon, 105; of Caillie, 106 ;
. of Denham, 107; of Dr. Holroyd, 108; of Dr. Russell, 109; of
Dr. Bowring, 109; of Lander, 111 ; of Oldfield, 112; of Dr. Men-
dez, 113; incident to detention, 113; evidence of Commodore
Owen, 113, 173; of Oiseau, 114; of Lander, 114; of Leonard,
116; of Oldfield, 116; of Colonel Nicholls, 1 1 7 ; of Captain Cook,
118, 173; incident to the middle passage, 122, 163, 172; ofCal-
deleugh, 173; of McLean, 173 ; of Captain Ramsay, 173 ; of Sir
Graham Hammond, 173; after capture, 175 to 184 ; after landing
and in the seasoning, 184; general summary, 195 to 202; mor-
tality after capture omitted in the general calculation, 198 ; dimi-
nished fecundity of the African race also omitted, 199; mortality
on board trading vessels, its causes, 358
Mourovia sugar company, 352, note
Mourzook, a slave depot, the capital of Fezzan, 64, 65, 10"
Mozambique, amount of slave exports, 49
Muncaster, Lord, his statements on the seizure of slaves, 74, 98
Muscat, extent of its slave trading, 61
Mushgrelia, great intercourse with Houssa, 474
Muskets, manufactured at Benin, 480
N. ■
Napoleon, a slave vessel, 123
Native mind, importance of its elevation, 457
Naval force of importance, though inadequate to extinguish the
trade, 6, 392 ; must be rendered more efficient, 283 ; steamers
should be employed, 285, 413
Navigation, inland, 317, 345, 346,354, 420, 421, 433, 479
Negro character and disposition, 461, 485; thirst for knowledge, 486
Neutrality of Fernando Po to be permanent and invariable, 443
Newland, Peter, a liberated African, his wealth, 372
Newton, Rev. John, his opinion on the mortality occasioned by slave-
trading wars, 98
Nicolls, Colonel, his description of a predatory excursion for slaves,
86; of a slave depot, 117; of conduct on board a slave vessel,
169; of African woods and timber, 318; of Fernando Po, 347
his opinion on the principles of the " Remedy/' 410
Niger, its course and character described, 345, 354
Nova Felicidade, a slave vessel, described, 139
Nuts, fit for trade, enumerated, 321
Nyani, its chief favourable to missionaries, 489
576 INDEX.
o.
Obeid, the capital of Kordofan, its slave hunts, 91, 94, 95
O'Beirn, assistant surgeon, his mission to the king of the Foulahs,
295
Oldfield, the African traveller, his description of a slave market, 112,
116 ; his account of the Niger, 346
Oiseau, captain of Le Louis, slave vessel, his cruelty, 114
Ordeal by poison, 240
Opportunity of active measures great at the present time, 515, 523
Oswego, wrecked on the coast of Africa, 463 ; African opinion of
white inferiority, 466
Paddock, Captain, his observations on the fertility of the soil, 328;
Captain of the Oswego, wrecked and enslaved, 463
Palm oil, 329 ; imports of it diminished of late years, 340
Palmersfon, Lord, his letters to the commissioners at Rio respecting
British subjects engaged in the slave trade, 56
Paquete de Capo Verde, slave vessel, 35
Para, its slave imports, 18
Park, Mungo, his description of the mode of obtaining slaves, 75 ;
of the march to the coast, 99; of the skill of slaves in weaving,
333 ; of the Niger, 345 ; of the civilization of Africa, 419
Pasha of Egypt, his expedition, 429 ; his character, 434
Patacho, a slave vessel, on board of which the slaves were kept
without air or food for 48 hours, 160
Panteta, a slave vessel, her state after capture, 176
Pernambuco, its slave imports, 18, 26
Pinney, Rev. John, his report of African coffee, pepper, and cotton
crops, 334
Piombetes, a Portuguese slave vessel, lost with 180 slaves on board,
168
Pitt, Mr., his estimate of the extent of the slave trade in 1792, 204 ?
his expectations of African civilization, 458
Plantains, an island in the mouth of the Sherbro', 488
Population, African, dense on the banks of the Niger, 472
Porter, Mr., of the Board of Trade, opposed to a custom-house at
Fernando Po, 443
Porto Rico, its exports, 35 ; slave population, 35 ; extent of its slave
trade, 36, 53; omitted in the general calculation, 37
Portugal, her encouragement of the slave trade, 205, 206, 211
Portuguese slave vessels, their number in 1838, 48
Practical measures recommended for carrying out the " Remedy," 51
INDEX. 577
Preparatory measures, 283, 299 , partial benefit to be expected from
them, 300
Principles on which the slave trade may be suppressed by aid of
commerce explained, 8, 306, 338, 400, 410, 414, 415, 418, 419
Profits of slave trading, 180 percent., 222
Q.
Quaco Dooah, king of the Ashantees, 257; his observance of the
customs, 259
Quakers, Mohammedan, are ignorant dogs, no better than Chris-
tians, 470
Queahs, an African tribe, destroyed by a slaving expedition, 82
Quilimane, its slave exports, 49: its prosperity destroyed by the
slave trade, 81 ; mortality of a cargo landed there, 118, 120, 162
R.
Rabbah, on the Niger, rich and fertile, 318, 346
Railroad, projected by Mohammed Ali, 433
Rankin, his description of the destruction of Rokel in a slave hunt,
85; of a vessel after capture, 1 78 ; of liberated Africans, 189; of
the extent of the western trade, 201
Rapido, a slave vessel that threw all her cargo, amounting to 250,
overboard, 155
" Recent Letters from Africa," a book quoted, 340, note
Raymond, Captain, his views on the abolition of slave trading by
agriculture and commerce, 424
Reffell, Mr., his opinion of the state of slave cargoes after landing,
188
Regulo, a slave vessel that threw part of her cargo overboard to avoid
capture, 155
Remedy, the true, to be found in the enlightenment of the natives to
the advantages of peaceful industry, 302 ; not in the co-operation
of European powers to suppress the trade, because we have no in-
ducement to offer equal to the 180 per cent, profit derived from
it, 303 ; to be found in commerce, 306 ; in agriculture, 338, 342 ;
these principles supported by Governor M'Carthy, 400; by Gene-
ral Turner, 401 ; by Colonel Nicolls, 410; by Governor Rendall,
414; by Mr.M'Queen, 415; by Robertson, 418; by Park, 419;
by Laird, 420; by Lander, 421 ; by Major Gray, 421; by Burk-
hardt, 422 ; by Captain W. Allen, 423 ; specific steps recom-
mended to be taken, 518
Rendall, Mr., bis testimony to the good faith of African chiefs,
297 ; his views on the improvement of Africa, 414
2q
578 INDEX.
Ricketts, Major, on the disposition to work for wages, Appendix C.
Riley, his information, 65 ; his account of the conveyance of slaves
to the coast, 103
Rio da Plata, a slave vessel whose cargo was pirated after landing,
190
Rio da Prata, slave vessel, 38; her tonnage in relation to her licensed
cargo, 39
Rio de Janeiro, slave importations, 17, 22, 24, 39, 49, 51; its im-
ports of British manufactures for slave trading cargoes, 54
Rio Nunez, formerly notorious for slave trading, but now the site of
many factories, 380
Rio Pongas, its schools, 489
Rio Volta, Danish settlement at, 454
Ritchie, his estimate of slave trade in Mourzouk, 65
Ritter, the geographer, his description of slave caravans, 65
Robertson, Mr., his suggestions for rendering Africa a source of pro-
fit to Europe, 418
Rodeur, a slave vessel, dreadful sufferings of her cargo from oph-
thalmia, 137
Rokel, an African town, destroyed in a slave hunt, 85
Rokell, a river, the direct route to the sources of the Niger, 404
Rokou, place where timber is cut, 477
Rosanna, an American slave vessel, 41
Ruppell, Dr., respecting the slaves captured by the Pasha of Egypt,
67 ; respecting the mortality consequent on their capture, 109
S.
Sackatoo, capital of the Felatahs, 63, 294 ; cotton planted to a great
extent, 334 ; bills on England negotiable, 474
St. Jago, 31
Saint Joachim, a slave vessel, horrible state of her cargo, 136
Saint Leon, a slave vessel, lost by the ophthalmia of her cargo and
crew, 139
St. Mary's, a settlement on the Gambia, its nourishing state, 384
St. Paul de Loanda, its slave exports, 50, 51
San Jose Hallaxa, a slave vessel, on board which the slaves died
from starvation, 147
Schools described, 389 ; desire manifested for learning, 389 ; for agri-
culture at M'Carthy's Island, 390 ; native aptitude for learning de-
scribed by Hannah Kilham, 484 ; on the Rio Pongas, 489 ; nor-
mal school at Sierra Leone, 498 ; college about to be established
on M'Carthy's Island, 499 ; establishment of normal schools re-
commended, 517
INDEX. 579
Sechuana language, key to the dialect from the Congo to the Dela-
goa Bay, 499
Seizure of slaves, occasion of mortality, 74
Senegal, state of the slave depot at, 113; French settlement, 454;
navigable for 700 miles, 356
Sennaas, its slave trade, 66, 70 ; Kartoum, its capital, 429
Serrawoollies, or Piloboonkoes, 478
Settlements in Africa, rules to be observed in their formation, 516
Seys, Rev. J., his statement of excellent cotton at St. Paul's River,
334
Sharpe, Granville, description of the middle passage taken from his
Memoirs, 130
Shendrum, a country celebrated for its gold, 533
Shendy, a slave depot on the Nile, 64, 66, 70, 109
Sherbro', a river, 402, 488
Si, a Spanish slave vessel of 71 tons, having 360 slaves on board,
162
Sierra Leone, its success partial, and the causes explained, 363; its
progress, 403, 455
Siout, a slave depot on the Nile, 64
Slave labour deprecated, 10 ; absurdity of its principle, 439
Slave vessels captured, 58
Slavery, its demoralizing tendency, 461
Slaves, their average cost price, 57, 438; numbers captured on their
passage, 58 ; buried alive, 119 ; dying by starvation, 120; thrown
overboard, 130, 145, 155 ; their treatment in the middle passage,
122 to 167 ; flogged to death, 148 ; their treatment after landing
and in seasoning, 184 to 194; drowned to avoid duty in the
Brazils, 202
Slave trade, its extent, 12, 15, 46, 79, 195 to 202; aggregate of
annual loss to Africa stated at half a million, 202 ; manner of
conducting the smuggling trade, 20, 39, 212 ; carried on by a joint
stock company, 26 ; its extent proved by collateral evidence, 46,
53 ; its extent on the east and south-west coasts of Africa, 50 ;
chiefly upheld by British capital, 54 ; Mohammedan, 59 ; mari-
time, 60 ; desert or caravan trade, 63 ; aggregate amount of the
Mohammedan trade, 69; aggregate of the trade generally, 74;
the usual cause of African wars, 77; trade doubled since 1790,
97, 205 ; must be supplanted by a more lucrative trade, 359 — 393
Smith, Professor, his testimony to the slave trade being the usual
cause of African wars, 77 ; his description of the country, 228
Society for the civilization of Africa should be formed, 519
Soleil, slave vessel captured by the Leven, 49
Somaulys, inhabitants of Berbera, engaged in slave trade, 62
2q2
580 INDEX.
Souakin, a large slave market, 66
Soudan, negroes, their destination as slaves, 64, 67, 70, 107, 428
Spain, extent of her slave trade in 1837, 212: bribery of official men
to connivance, 217
Specific steps to be taken for advancing the civilization of Africa,
518
Steam cruisers necessary, 286
Stoffell, Andrew, a converted Hottentot, his evidence of the improved
condition of the Hottentots in consequence of missionary instruc-
tion, 509
Subsidies to African chiefs, 360
Sugar-cane, 327, 3S2
Summary of the calculations of the slave exports to the west, 45, 59
Superstitions and cruelties of the Africans, 226
Susoo language, Gospel of St. Matthew translated into, 499
Sutil, a slave vessel, state after capture described, 180
Tafilet, a slave depot, north of the desert, 64, 65
Tanda, a country celebrated for its gold, 533
Tasso, 4 78
Teembou, capital of the Foulahs, 295
Temerario, slave vessel, 36
Teresa, a slave vessel that went down with 186 slaves on board, 168
Texas, its agents in communication with Havana slave merchants,
42 ; extent of its trade, 44, 53 ; omitted in the general calcu-
lation, 45
Timbuctoo, 346 ; a market for the Mohammedan slave trade, 63, 65
Timmance, a district favourable to the palm tree, 329
Tombo, 478 ; the island of, 479
Tonnage of slave vessels while the trade was allowed, 122 ; frauds in
licensed Portuguese slave vessels, 144
Trade winds, their direction up the African rivers, 355
Treaties for the abolition of the slave trade inefficient, 210, 213, 225 ;
with native powers a necessary preparatory measure, 287 ; their
disposition to enter into treaties, 292, 294; good faith, 297; with
the king of Sherbro, 409 ; facilities for making them, 532
Tringham, Lieutenant, R.N., his description of a captured slave
vessel, 146, 176
Tschadda, its supposed course, 346, 354
Turner, General, governor of Sierra Leone, 400 ; extracts from his
journal exhibiting an identity of principles with those of the
Remedy, 401 to 406 ; his death, 409; effect of his measures, 409
INDEX. 581
u.
Uniao, a Portuguese slave vessel, mortality after landing, 187
United States, 40 ; effect of the president's declaration encouraging
to the trade, 41 ; their flag lent to cover slave trading, 41, 42, 43,
89 ; extent of their trade, 43 ; hostile to the right of search, 209
Uruguese minister, bribed to permit slave importation, 38
V.
Vencedora, a Spanish slave vessel carrying the royal colours of
Spain, dreadful sufferings of her slaves, 215
Venus, an American slave vessel, 43
Viajante, a slave vessel, 167
Vicente, a notorious slave dealer at Rio de Janeiro, 207
Vicua, a slave vessel which the captain attempted to blow up when
captured, 141
Village-breaking, or tegria, described, 75, 82, 85
Villault, his statement of the mortality of slave-trading expeditions, 98
Viper, an American slave vessel, 40
W.
Walsh, Dr., his description of a slave vessel detained on her passage,
and the horrible sufferings of her cargo, but which was allowed (of
necessity) to prosecute her voyage, 151
Wars in Africa, 77, 82, 83 ; evidence of Lander and Laird, 84 ; their
results, 85 ; evidence of Mr. M'Brair, 89 ; of Rev. J. Newton, 98 ;
of Denham, 99
Wauchope, Captain, R.N., his description of the horrors of a cap-
tured slave vessel, 157
Wawa, a market for the Mohammedan slave trade, 63, 293
Wednoon, a slave depot north of the desert, 64
Wellington, Duke of, his report of European feeling on our abolition
of British slave trade, 442
Wesleyan mission at M'Carthy's Island, 385
White river, 433
Wilberforce, Mr., his description of the mode of obtaining slaves, 75;
of the middle passage, 133
Wilson, Lieutenant, R.N., his testimony to the horrors of slave
vessels, 171
Woods, fit for commerce, 318 ; for dyeing, 320, 479
Woolli, its chief's invitation to missionaries, 489 ; treaty with him,
533
582 INDEX.
"Wrecks, mortality incident to, 166
Wydah, in the bight of Benin, its legitimate trade depressed by the
slave trade, 398
Y.
Yeanarn, a slave vessel, her horrible state on capture described, 142 ;
afterwards lost, and sunk with 380 slaves on board, 166
Zanzebar, a mart for slaves, 60, 62
Zong, a slave vessel from which the slaves were thrown overboard,
131.
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